A year on, CMRL yet to take control of MRTS

A highly placed SR officer revealed to DT Next that they had handed over the terms of reference to CMRL for taking over the MRTS service more than a year ago, but they have yet to get back to them. Given the enormity of differences between the two agencies, one run by Centre  and another by State, it would require more than a few meetings to even initiate the merger. 

Among the key issues that would test the patience of negotiators on both sides of the table would be the fare, rake maintenance and above all the pending link from Velachery to St Thomas Mount. While SR offers cross-sectoral services for a maximum of Rs 10, CMRL, which is struggling to break even on its metro corridor, would most likely scale up the price to cut down the operational expenditure. 

It has been reliably understood that CMRL does not want to commence the merger process till SR resolves the legal dispute with land owners who have been demand ing more money for their lands, taken over for the last 500 metres of the Velachery-St Thomas Mount connectivity, a case which had already tilted metro’s favour once in terms of land acquisition. Completion of Velachery – St Thomas Mount MRTS link would be crucial to the merger as metro service would meet MRTS service only at St Thomas Mount. Equally important would be the task of maintaining the MRTS rakes.

The two agencies have yet to finalize if the rakes would continue to be maintained by SR or CMRL would roll them in to its maintenance yard in Koyambedu for upkeep post-merger. Should CMRL take over maintenance, it would be an elaborate process considering that infrastructure at CMRL headquarters has been custom-designed to maintain four-car metro rakes. Also, the onus of running and maintaining MRTS would shift to State from Centre after the merger, indicating, additional legal bottlenecks to overcome.