Chennai Metro’s phase II, which will connect the IT corridor of the city to its northern suburbs, will begin in 2020 and is scheduled to be completed by 2026 if there are no delays in the work.
The tenders for the construction of the second phase of the metro, which will cover 118.9 kms across the city with 128 stations, will be invited by July following which the construction work is set to start by 2020, reported Sunitha Sekar of The Hindu.
The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 69,180 crore, which will be jointly funded by a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), central and the state governments. JICA has already approved loan amounting to Rs 20,196 crore for the project and the government of Tamil Nadu has also accorded an administrative sanction of Rs 40,941 crore for the work to commence.
Meanwhile, design consultants have begun work on some of the stretches of the project. The project consists of three corridors -- Madhavaram to Sholinganallur, Lighthouse to Poonamallee and Madhavaram to Siruseri SIPCOT. The stretch between Madhavaram and CMBT, Koyambedu and Madhavaram and Sholinganallur will be completed first, a CMRL official told The Hindu.
The official also told that unlike in phase I, where a joint tender was issued for different aspects of the construction work, phase II will have separate tenders for each aspect like tunnelling. This decision was reportedly taken to avoid the delays in the completion of the project due to delays in one aspect, which led to the delay in the next stage of the work.
Phase I of the Chennai Metro was completed and thrown open to public recently. It connects Washermanpet in north Chennai to the airport in south Chennai. Meanwhile, work is in progress to extend phase I further up north and connect Thiruvottriyur to the metro network.