Meetings to ‘lay track’ for mono rail

The project has had a chequered graph so far. It was first proposed by the AIADMK in 2006, and was meant to span 300 km through 18 corridors. But the project was shelved when the DMK came to power. In 2011, the AIADMK revived the project with the aim of connecting the mono and metro rail projects at Vadapalani and Kathipara junction.

Sources said the project, between Vandalur and Velachery, is waiting to be cleared by the central government. The Union minister of state for surface transport Pon Radhakrishnan said, “I do not know anything about the project. The state government has not requested my help to get central clearance for the project.”  Clearance of the second corridor is important. “When the two corridors become operational, it would raise the share of public transport in Chennai’s urban transport system to nearly 45 per cent from the current 27 per cent” sources said. 

A transport department policy note stated that work had begun to establish a Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) to monitor aspects of an integrated transport for Chennai to coordinate the proposed mono rail, Chennai Metro rail, MRTS, MTC with the Greater Chennai corporation, police and the CMDA.

The first Poonamalee – Kathipara corridor would be constructed under the PPP category at an estimated cost of Rs. 3,267 crore. The second corridor — Vandalur - Velachery — would be built through multi-lateral funding at a cost of Rs.3,153.6 crore.

However, the state government is making serious efforts to ensure that it is not financially compromised in the Vandalur– Velachery project as happened in the metro rail project where the central government and funding agencies get part of the profit, while the Tamil Nadu government alone bears any loss.