CHENNAI: The long-pending Velachery-St Thomas Mount extension of the Mass Rapid Transit System has moved into its final preparatory phase, with the Southern Railway conducting internal joint inspections.
The inspections are coming ahead of the statutory safety trial, which is a mandatory procedure before the national carrier begins operations on this much-awaited link.
Chief Project Manager BNS Chalam said railway teams, led by the Divisional Railway Manager and officials from multiple departments, are carrying out detailed inspections as part of "preliminary and preparatory" work for the inspection by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS). The exercise covers the full stretch from Velachery to St Thomas Mount will be under way for three days.
He said the statutory inspection will be conducted by the CRS and the date has not yet been fixed. The ongoing assessments are aimed at ensuring readiness across track, signalling and other operational systems before the formal trial.
Once the CRS completes the inspection and grants clearance, passenger services can be introduced on the roughly five-km link, enabling direct MRTS connectivity up to St Thomas Mount with interchange to suburban EMU and Metro Rail.
Earlier in November, the CSIR–Structural Engineering Research Centre (CSIR-SERC), Chennai, had conducted instrumentation and load testing on selected spans of the elevated corridor. The tests were part of the final safety checks for the structures, and the CRS inspection was supposed to happen soon afterwards – by December, going by what officials had said then.
However, that was not to be. Later, it was reported that the officials here were eyeing to open services by Pongal. But, even that did not fruition.
Such extensions and delays are not new for the Rs 734-crore Velachery-St Thomas Mount extension project that is part of the Phase two of MRTS.
The project to link the elevated MRTS corridor with the suburban network received official sanction way back in the mid-2000s. However, the works were delayed due to various issues, mainly those related to land acquisition.