Low patronage even after connecting Central may affect CMRL Phase II works

The ridership of Chennai Metro, which commenced service in June 2015, stands at only a tenth of its original traffic projection. Roughly, around 60,000 people, according to CMRL officials, use the metro every day now. CMRL has reasons to celebrate the number given that it was only 30,000 till service was extended to Chennai Central in May 2018. However, the new number leaves a lot to be desired, for the patronage did not increase manifold, as was expected by the CMRL. 

The abysmal revenue record of CMRL had even given Union Urban Development Ministry reasons to doubt the feasibility of the 107 km second phase of the project for which the agency had sent a detailed project report last year to avail funds. The Union Urban Development Ministry, which was one of the partners in the project had specifically taken exception to the ridership only hovering around the 30,000 mark when it should have been 4.5 lakh per day for the 28 kms operational then (prior to extension of service up to Chennai Central from Nehru Park and AG-DMS from Saidapet in May 2018). 

Now, CMRL has not only pinned hopes on connecting AG-DMS to Washermanpet via Chennai Central, which is poised to be achieved in December 2018, to improve the ridership but also bats for the second phase costing an estimated Rs 85,047 crore to achieve peak occupancy rate. 

Meanwhile, CMRL, which commenced trial run of a diesel locomotive from AG-DMS to Washermanpet in late August, hopes to start running four-car metro trains on 10 km stretch from late October. CMRL has been engaged in developing signal and communication infrastructure during the last few months. 

“Ridership will maximise once entire Anna Salai is covered by the metro. Also, connecting the business districts and High Court in Parrys to Airport from December will contribute to increase the footfall,” a senior CMRL requesting anonymity said, reasoning that metro would redefine the nature of commute in the city once the second phase is completed as the city would have metro trains connecting all corners, from IT hub Siruseri on OMR to Madhavaram (corridor 3), CMBT to Light House (corridor 4) and Madhavaram to Sholinganallur (corridor 5). Curiously, the numbers given by CMRL for phase-I even do not add up. While metro put the average daily ridership at nearly 60,000, a simple math of the monthly figures given by (14.28 lakh in August 2018) suggests that the monthly footfall was well below 50,000 per day.