1st Pier Cast for Nagpur Metro’s 18.6 km East-West Line

May 24 Update – Pier#153 is among the first few piers of the line; the ones shown below are not. Apologies!

Over the past week, workers from Afcons Infrastructure completed casting the first two piers, P-17 & P-18, for Nagpur Metro’s 18.557 km east-west line at Subhash Nagar in west Nagpur. This feat on the 10.39 km Reach 3 leg of the 38.22 project was achieved by Afcons 7 months after they were awarded a Rs. 478 crore contract to build its viaduct between Lokmanya Nagar and Jhansi Rani Square. Initial site barricading work started in November 2016 after which a ground breaking ceremony, to launch piling work, was held in December.

Both piers are currently being cured using gunny/hessian bags which will be removed in the coming days to reveal the finished product.

Piers’ specs via NMRCL’s Facebook page:

• Height – P17: 8.971m & P18: 8.962m (excluding pier cap of 2.25m)
• Size – 1.6m x 2.0m
• Concrete Grade – M60

Map of Nagpur Metro’s Reach 3 – view Nagpur Metro map & information

Diagrammatic representation of a metro pillar – Courtesy: Civil Engineering Discoveries

Pier-17 on Nagpur’s EW line – Photo Copyright: NMRCL

Pier-18 – Photo Copyright: NMRCL

In the coming months, Afcons will cast pier caps and then set up a launching gantry for erecting segments which are currently being cast & stacked at a yard in Lokmanya Nagar:

Afcons Infra’s casting yard – Photo Copyright: Neelam Kumar Mishra

NMRCL’s team has also announced that work on the 8.15 km Reach-4, on the other end this line, will start “soon” on Central Avenue in eastern Nagpur. The contract for that section’s viaduct was awarded to ITD Cementation India in March 2017.

For more updates, check out the Nagpur section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG