The delay in starting construction work on stations has forced Chennai Metro Rail to slow down tunnel boring machines in a few of the locations in the upcoming phase II project. In a few locations, the machines have already finished the boring process and are waiting to enter the station.
Across the city, the ₹61,843 crore phase II project construction work to connect different areas by Chennai Metro Rail system has been going on for a few years now. In three corridors that are part of this project—Madhavaram to SIPCOT (corridor 3), Light House to Poonamallee (corridor 4) and Madhavaram to Sholinganallur (corridor 5) —construction has been underway.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) usually, building a tunnel takes more time than constructing a station. But this time, tunnelling has been progressing fairly well in many locations in a section of corridor 3—Madhavaram to Taramani — unlike station construction along this stretch.
This is because Chennai Metro Rail faced a major challenge in 2021 which resulted in the delay in construction of stations along a part of corridor 3 –from Madhavaram to Taramani. Three years back, the authorities had to cancel six tenders floated for station construction, as steep prices were quoted by bidders. As a result, it took quite a few months to go in for bids again and award the contracts. Subsequently, station construction began sometime back.
As the commencement of station construction suffered a setback in the initial stage itself, tunnel boring machines (TBM) in some of the locations in the Madhavaram-Taramani stretch have either been slowed down deliberately or finished their job and are waiting to enter the station.
“A TBM which is launched in one station is retrieved from another station after a tunnel is built. So unless a station’s base slab and diaphragm wall (or station box) is built, the TBM cannot be taken out. In three stretches—Ayanavaram to Otteri, Ayanavaram to Perambur and Chetpet to Sterling Road, the TBMs have already bored and are waiting near the station to make a breakthrough and enter. In a few other locations like Madhavaram High Road to Moolakadai and Greenways Road to Mandaveli, we have slowed down the TBMs because it would anyway take time to finish the station’s diaphragm wall and base slab,” an official said.
The opening of the stretch between Madhavaram and Taramani has been pushed by more than a year owing to these issues. “We have been consistently taking efforts to push the speed of the station construction,” he added.
