The Chennai metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) is planning to start tunnelling underneath the Chetpet Lake before the year ends, officials announced.

The Chetpet station will see the construction of a shaft that will take six months before a tunnel boring machine (TBM) is to be deployed.

The boring machine has already passed the acceptance test, and the TBM will be assembled a month after the completion of the construction of the shaft. With all these processes completed, the project should be ready for tunnelling by the end of this year, an official stated.

The TBM will be drilling beneath the soil under Chetpet Lake at a depth of around 22m and eventually reach the KMC metro station, which is planned on the road opposite Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital, at a depth of around 29m.

Between the two stations, it will cover around 838 m distance. A tunnel boring machine is already being assembled by engineers at the Chetpet metro station and will begin tunnelling in July, covering a distance of 845 m from Chetpet metro to Sterling Road junction metro.

Chetpet metro station is expected to serve as an interchange point as it will be linked with the Chetpet suburban train station.

The expansion of Metro Phase II is planned with a network length of 118.1 km with 118 stations.

It consists of three corridors, namely Corridor-3 from Madhavaram to SIPCOT (45.4 km), Corridor-4 from Lighthouse to Poonamalle Bypass (26.1 km), Corridor-5 from Madhavaram to Sholinganallur (44.6 km).

Corridor-3 runs across the eastern side of the city, linking suburban areas like Madhavaram Milk Colony and Old Mahabalipuram Road with core city areas like Chetpet, Nungambakkam, Mylapore, and Adyar.

CMRL managing director, M A Siddique, stated that phase-2 will be completed in stages between 2026 and 2028.

Madhavaram-SIPCOT Corridor

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