Chennai Metro to float tenders for construction of phase II corridors soon

Chennai (Urban Transport News): The Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) plans to begin work on the Chennai Metro phase II project which spanning across 118.9 km by the mid of 2020. The first tender for construction of 52 km long Madhavaram-Taramani underground stretch on corridor 3 will be floated soon. The Chennai Metro Phase II project comprises three corridors — Madhavaram to SIPCOT (Corridor 3); Lighthouse to Poonamallee (Corridor 4); and Madhavaram to Sholinganallur (Corridor 5).

Chennai Metro is preparing tender documents for construction of the 52-km Madhavaram-Taramani stretch which is a part of corridor 3. This stretch passes through Purasawalkam, Sterling Road and Mylapore. Sources said that the reason for picking a part of corridor 3 to start construction between Madhavaram and Taramani is because the whole stretch is underground and it will take more time to build. The stretch between Taramani and Siruseri of corridor 3 is elevated and will be constructed later. A Chennai Metro official who is well aware with the project said,

The tunnelling in the city is quite time consuming and hence we want to begin in this stretch. Also, Madhavaram is the place where a huge depot will be located and where maintenance and cleaning of trains will be done; so, we wanted to build that early too. Tenders will be called for civil work early next year and, in about 3-4 months, the preliminary construction work too will start.

Work on the Madhavaram-CMBT stretch will begin a few months after corridor 3. This stretch will have eleven elevated stations and five underground stations. Learning lessons from Phase I, CMRL has decided to float tenders in small pieces so that a single contractor may not get several stations. In the Chennai Metro phase I, the tender awarded to Gammon India and CCCL were terminated due to poor performance and this resulted in the delay in completion of the project.

We are working out a combination on how to award the station contracts; in some areas, there will be 2-3 stations; in others, there may be 3-4 stations. The idea is to ensure that a large portion of work goes unaffected if the contractor lands in trouble or fails to meet deadlines.