Central-Nehru Park Metro line misses deadline again

The Chennai Metro Rail (CMRL) has missed its deadline for yet another time. The much-expected metro connectivity to Chennai Central station, which was planned to be launched in March-April, has been delayed. The CMRL had promised to launch the commercial service of Chennai Central-Airport metro line by May.

CMRL officials, who have been waiting for the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) to inspect the line since the middle of April, are now expecting to complete this process in a fortnight. The CMRS will inspect Nehru Park-Central section and Little Mount-DMS (Teynampet) section that is almost ready.

“Only the finishing touch is left on Mount-DMS stretch, which will extend metro connectivity to Anna Salai. We have planned to complete both simultaneously,” said a CMRL official requesting anonymity.

This is not the first time CMRL has been caught overshooting deadline. Be it the first service from Koyambedu to Alandur that had missed two deadlines or the extension to Alandur from Little Mount or the opening of the underground section from Koyambedu to Nehru Park via Shenoy Nagar, CMRL has never got it done on time. Even on Alandur-Airport section, CMRL had terminated a contract after the firm delayed the construction of stations on the route, which was subsequently awarded in small packages to many firms that delayed the launch of the service.

The proposed inspection of Little Mount-DMS also suffered delays after a Russian firm that had taken contract shut shop, forcing the CMRL to float fresh bids for tunneling and construction of stations.