Soil Testing to Begin for Chennai Metro’s Phase 2

News has emerged that the Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) has set the ball rolling for Phase 2 of the Metro project! They’ve appointed the public sector engineering consultancy firm RITES to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) with surveys expecting to begin within the next two weeks.

The surveys are expected to take six to eight months and the final DPR will look at the topography and geotechnical details, including soil condition, layout of stations, alignment of the line, requirement of land and suggestion for intermodal connection between metro and other modes of transport, train operation plan and financial features.

Soil Testing in Chennai – photo: Anna Nagar Daily, used under Creative Commons License (By 2.0)

Once the DPR is prepared, RITES will submit it to the CMRL for their approval following which it’ll then travel up the chain to the State government and then the Central government. As a reminder, after an initial study on the traffic pattern, need for connectivity and feasibility for construction, the state government and CMRL had identified the Madhavaram-Light House (17 km), Koyambedu-Injambakkam (27 km) and Madhavaram-Perumbakkam (32 km) as the lines that will be built under Phase 2 (See: DPR For Chennai’s 76 km Phase 2 to be Prepared Soon) After this gets completed, the entire Metro network will be 121 km long.

– TMRG