Scrapping of Natesan Park metro station in Chennai - What happened?
Posted on: 23/Feb/2023 9:50:32 AM
In the metro phase-2 in T. Nagar, Natesan Park metro station was planned initially but now Chennai Metro Rail Limited or CMRL has scrapped this metro station.
At present, the nearest metro station to the locality would be the Panagal Park metro station. It is noteworthy that T. Nagar is linked on corridor 4 that connectS Light HouSe with Poonamallee bypass.
As the distance between the metro station and the next one on either side Panagal Park and Nandanam is less than 700m, the Natesan Park metro station has been scrapped now. By 2026, the 118.9km phase-2 with 128 stations would be ready for public use.
Mr. L. Girirajan, CMRL spokesperson, mentioned that there would be no metro station at Natesan Park. He added that people who want to do shopping at Pondy Bazaar or Panagal park would have to get down at Panagal Park metro station itself. He concluded that the other station to come up near T. Nagar would be Nandanam.
It must be recalled that in 2021 the CMRL decided to scrap 4 metro stations like Natesan Park, St Joseph`s College, Foreshore Estate and Doveton as the distance between them and the next metro station was less than one kilometer. Moreover, CMRL wanted to cut down the cost from Rs 89000 crores to Rs 61843 crores. At the time of floating tenders, these metro stations were not mentioned by CMRL is known.
It was brought out by some sources of CMRL that initially Natesan Park metro station was planned inside the park but later changed it to a school on the Venkatnarayana Road. Information is that initially the metro stations were planned to come up at a distance of 900m to one km to each other.
In the metro phase-1 in Chennai all other metro stations are located at a distance of 850m to one km but the metro station at Central and Government Estate were constructed at a distance of more than 1.5kms away. An emergency shaft has been built inside the May Day Park at Chintadripet and it could be used to evacuate passengers during emergency situations. This shaft has been built to make up for the long distance between the Central and Govt Estate metro stations.
It was highlighted by some CMRL sources that even in metro phase-2 CMRL might plan about an option of building a facility for emergency evacuation in the place of these scrapped metro stations.
