Maharashtra Govt Approves Pune Metro’s 4.4 KM Nigdi Extension

Maharashtra state government’s cabinet on Wednesday approved the extension of Pune Metro’s 16.589 km Purple Line (Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation – Swargate) to the northern suburb of Nigdi.

This 4.41 km elevated extension from PCMC will consist of 3 stations at Chinchwad, Akurdi and Nigdi, and will be implemented by Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (Maha-Metro) at an estimated cost of Rs. 946.76 crore.

Within that, the central government will fund 10%, state government and PCMC will fund 30% (Rs. 170.30 crore from state), and the rest 60% will be funded through foreign loans. Daily ridership for the 21 km entire line (Swargate – Nigdi) in 2023 has been estimated at a highly optimistic figure of 4.95 lakh.

Here’s the cabinet’s approval decision which refers this extension as 1A:

The project’s detailed project report (DPR) was prepared by Maha-Metro and submitted for PCMC’s approval in September 2018. At that time, it had been estimated to cost Rs. 1050 and envisioned building a new depot in Nigdi. It’s unknown if that is still part of the current plan.

With this exciting development, the project’s proposal and DPR will be sent to the central government’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and MahaMetro will begin talks with lenders. I see tendering for its construction starting no sooner than mid-2022.

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– TMRG