Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin inspects Chennai Metro Rail-Phase 2 works

CHENNAI: To ascertain the status of Metro Rail construction and its impact on traffic in the city, Udhayanidhi Stalin, Minister of Youth Welfare and Sports Development, held inspections at various Metro construction sites on Sunday.

To reduce the traffic congestion in the city and minimise the travel time, while also making travel seamless, the DMK government in 2007 gave approval to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) to begin construction. The first phase of the project was carried out by the then deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin.

To provide better connectivity, the State government has been furthering the second phase of Metro Rail construction too. As part of it, Udhayanidhi inspected the work at Poonamallee depot that’s coming up on 40.5 acres of land at Rs 187 crore.

This depot has 17 buildings like an administration wing, workshop, warehouse, train parking facility and special facilities like a testing track and automatic train washing system. The maintenance of upto 56 trains of 6 coaches is being planned at the depot.

Around 82% of the construction works have been completed. The remaining work such as the train parking facility and testing track will be completed within the next 6 months.

Additionally, Udhayanidhi reviewed the progress of construction work in Royapettah Metro station, constructed at the cost of Rs 250 crore. The station will be 150 meters long, 22 meters wide and 21.5 metres deep.

The minister also launched the tunnel boring machine (TBM) ‘Bhavani’ for the construction of an underground station from Royapettah to Dr RK Salai for 910 metres. He inspected the construction of the double decker Metro Rail at Alapakkam.