Mr. Rahul Shah, president and COO Buildings and infrastructure, Tata projects mentioned that the metro train phase - 2 tunneling work of CMRL between Madhavaram and Kellys in Chennai has been going on smoothly now. This tunneling work is passing through some thickly populated areas and 200m of the work has been completed till now.
It is noteworthy that the work in the corridor 3 of second phase of CMRL project would involve the construction of 9km twin bored channels totalling 18km from tunnel boring machines or TBM retrieval shaft near Venugopal Nagar to Kelly`s station. The work also involves construction of diaphragm walls of station box and entry cum exit strictures of Madhavaram Milk Colony,Murari Hospital, Ayanavaram and Purasawalkam High Road stations.
Mr. Rahul Shah then spoke about how currently how 2 boring machines are being used and how 2 more boring machines would be used by the end of January. By April, remainin 3 tunnel boring machines would be used for completing 9km stretch.
There would be 50 metro stations along the corridor 3, north-south line from Madhavarm to SIPCOT of 45km in length. Twenty metro stations would be elevated and the rest 30 would be underground. Important places like Adyar, IT Corridor, Mylapore and Purasawalkam etc would be interconnected.
The reason why an underground stretch has been chosen for the project was due to the fact that the stretch would pass through high populated places like Perambur, Ayanavaram and Purasawalkam etc. During the tunnel boring work, enough precaution would be taken and the structures on the surface would not be disturbed. Vibrations 30m below would be monitored and before TBM approaches the structures the structures would be strengthened.
During the nights only, most of the work is being carried out now and the entire project would be completed in the next 18 months to 24 months. Point is that out of 13 stations as many as 9 stations are not yet tendered. Trench cutting technology of Germany is being used by Tata Projects. As manya s 4 trench cutters are being used and they have been imported from Germany. For the geological formations in Chennai, this technology would be superb.