Chennai metro’s 1st underground line opens

The Tamil Nadu government must expedite completion of the 45-km first phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project, emphasised Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.

Inaugurating a 7-km underground section of the Chennai Metro Rail along with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, Naidu said the State government should also enable multi-modal integration at metro, bus and railway stations to encourage public transport.

Cities that have created integrated, multi-modal infrastructure have effectively tackled pollution and congestion. Every trip of a four-car metro rake will remove 16 buses, 300 cars or 600 two-wheelers from road. The daily rider-ship at the completion of the first phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project is expected to be 7.75 lakh, he said.

With the opening of the underground section from Thirumangalam to Nehru Park on Sunday, Chennai commuters get 28 km of Metro Rail service out of the total 45 km planned for the first phase. The government sanctioned the project in January 2009 at a cost of ₹14,600 crore, and it has so far released about ₹11,301 crore, he said.

In June 2016, the extension of the Chennai Metro Phase-1 from Washermanpet to Wimco Nagar for about 9 km, at a total cost of ₹3,770 crore, was also cleared.

The Centre is formulating a new Metro Rail Policy that will enable innovative financing such as Land Value Capture and Transit Oriented Development, which will be mandatory for new metro-rail projects.

The government has standardised critical specifications for rolling stock and signalling systems of metro rail, which will encourage indigenisation, Naidu said.

The Centre is also planning to roll out a new Green Urban Mobility Scheme to improve overall mobility in cities’ pedestrian pathways and bicycle-sharing schemes. It will also promote electric mobility and alternative fuels.

The country has about 340 km of metro rail in Delhi-NCR, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Mumbai. In addition, 529 km are under construction in various cities and around 520 km are on the drawing board.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami said the State government is awaiting the Centre’s clearance of the 107-km, second phase of the Metro Rail project at an estimated cost of ₹85,000 crore. This will have three lines linking the northern suburbs to those in the south.

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