Connecting Chennai City Better in Future

Chennai, India, 21 May, 2015 - The Govt. of Tamilnadu created a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for implementing the Chennai Metro Rail Project. This SPV named as ‘Chennai Metro Rail Ltd’ was incorporated on 03.12.2007 under the companies act. It has now been converted in to a joint venture of Govt. of India and Govt. Of Tamil Nadu with equal sharing. Metro Rail systems are already operation in New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru as well as approved for Hyderabad.

The Govt. Of Tamil Nadu after careful consideration to implement a rail based mass Rapid Transport system i.e. the Metro Rail Project. This project with a base cost of INR 14,600 crores is being funded by the Govt. of Tamil Nadu and will provide the people of Chennai with a fast, reliable, convenient, efficient, modern and economical mode of transport which is properly integrated with other forms of public and private transports including buses, sub-urban trains and MRTS.CMRL is proposed to provide about 45 km Metro network in the City across two corridors.

Corridor-1: Washermenpet to Airport will would covering a total length of 23.0 km of which 14.3 km would be underground section with the following stations viz. Washermenpet Metro, Mannadi, High Court, Central Metro, Govt. Estate, LIC, Thousand Lights, AG-DMS, Teynampet, Nandanmam and Saidapet Metro and 8.7 km would run on elevated sections covering Little Mount, Guindy Metro, Alandur, Nanganallur Road, Meenambakkam Metro and Airport.

Corridor-2: Central to St. Thomas Mount will would covering a total length of 22 km of which 9.7 km would be underground section with the following stations: Central Metro, Egmore Metro, Nehru Park, Kilpauk, Pachaiyappa’s College, Shenoy Nagar, Anna Nagar East, Anna Nagar Tower and Thirumangalam and 12.3 km would run on elevated sections covering Koyambedu, CMBT, Arunbakkam, Vadapalani, Ashok Nagar, EKKattuthangal, Alandur and St. Thomas Mount Metro.

Metro stations will be elder friendly and physically challenged friendly with escalators and lifts, other facilities include AC comfort in underground stations, Automatic announced systems, automatic fare collection systems, electronic information display boards, shopping malls, toilet facilities, CCTV systems, Video surveillance systems, Fire fighting systems, Park& ride facilities etc. All Metro coaches are of State of the art design and also have emergency buttons to alert the driver, air-conditioned, lightweight, made of stainless steel with 3 Phase braking system. The cars will have Automatic Train Protection (ATP) and Automatic Train Operation (ATO). Besides these cars will have electronic route map, Public Address system, passenger Emergency intercoms, Video surveillance and CCTV. Each rake shall have two wheel chair parking locations for the benefit of physically challenged persons. The cars will operate on 25 km through an Overhead Catenaries System.

Sophisticated signaling system with Automatic Train Protection, Automatic Train Operation and Automatic Train control will ensure a high degree of Safety of passengers. Train operations will be controlled centrally from the State of the art operations control centre. The platform screen Door is an integral part of the underground Section comprising of 19 stations which is full height PSD. Though the exact fare structure will be finalized at the time of starting the train operation and fare will be cost-effective.

The Govt. of Tamil Nadu approved  in-principle the extension of corridor-1 of Chennai Metro Rail Project from Washermenpet to Thiruvottiyur–Wimco Nagar covering a distance of 9.051 km on 15.10.2010. It has also approved the estimated cost of IRR 3001 crores and has recommended this extension project to Govt. of India for central Govt. funding from Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).