What has happened now regarding land acquisition for MRTS expansion in Chennai
Posted on: 07/Mar/2023 9:17:43 AM
The TN state government is now thinking about the possibility of terminating the MRTS services at Chennai Fort station itself or limiting the train services to Chennai Beach. It must be noted that the move to acquire the land that has been owned by RBI or Reserve Bank of india for MRTS has hit the roadblock. For the seamless connectivity between Chennai beach and Chennai Fort stations, 0.5 hectares of land is needed to lay a 4th line. Truth is that without the land MRTS services would not be extended to Chennai Beach. Discussions have been going on now.
It was later revealed by CUMTA special officer Mr. L. Jayakumar that the decision whether to terminate services at chennai Fort station or to have limited services to Chennai Beach would be taken in the forthcoming 5 to 6 months. In Chennai, the MRTS railway stations like Chennai Beach. Chennai Fort and Chennai Park are manned by railways and the control of MRTS ends at Chintadripet.
A 2 stage approach is being followed to merge MRTS with Chennai metro rail. Point is that in the first stage CMDA would develop all MRTS railway stations commercially and Indian Rail;ways would manage operation and maintenance. After that, complete takeover of MRTS would be carried out. In 2022, after the stalemate of nearly 4 years, merger of MRTS and CMRL began afresh.It must be recalled that in 2018 the merger was postponed and that was due to some issues in land acquisition between TN govt and Southern Railways as the SR had plans to construct a railway line between Beach and Park railway stations.
A consultant prepared a final report in 2018 for studying the merger of MRTS and CMRL and the report stated that the TN govt would have to shell out Rs 2800 cr to Rs 3100 cr for reviving the dull and hollow MRTS platforms
