Kanpur Metro’s TBM Tatya Records 3rd Breakthrough at Bada Chauraha

It’s been a day of breakthroughs! Besides L&T recording a NATM tunnel breakthrough for the Mumbai – Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project, Gulermak – Sam India Builtwell JV on Thursday also recorded a breakthrough for the 32.4 km Kanpur Metro Phase 1 project.

In Kanpur, Gulermak – Sam India’s Terratec tunnel boring machine (TBM) S92, nicknamed Tatya, arrived at Bada Chauraha Station after building a 510m tunnel from Naveen Market Station for the city’s 23.785 km Line-1 (IIT Kanpur – Naubasta).

This was TBM S92’s third tunnel breakthrough, and the 6th of 8 breakthroughs planned in Phase 1 project’s 3.619 km Package KNPCC-05 connecting MacRobertganj (Permat) Ramp – Nayaganj Station.

This third drive was completed in 68 days. Here’s a list of all drives completed by TBM Tatya so far:

• Bada Chauraha to Nayaganj (1025m) – January 2023
• Chunniganj to Naveen Market (728m) – July 2023
• Naveen Market to Bada Chauraha (510m) – October 2023 (this post!)

Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) had awarded Gulermak – Sam India with Package KNPCC-05’s construction contract in March 2021 with a 36 month deadline.

Besides constructing twin tunnels, they’ll be building 4 stations at Chunniganj, Naveen Market, Bada Chauraha and Nayaganj, each 215m long.

TBM Tatya’s sister machine, Nana, working on the up-line had arrived at Bada Chauraha back in September 2023.

With this development, Line-1’s both up and down line tunnels have been built all the way from Chunniganj to Nayaganj, a distance of roughly 3.18 km including 3 cut & cover station boxes.

Like Nana, Tatya will now be dismantled and taken to a cut and cover shaft (view on Google Maps) in MacRobertganj (Permat), and re-deployed for its 4th and final assignment to build a roughly 414m tunnel towards Chunniganj Station.

In case you missed it, Afcons Infrastructure working on Kanpur Metro Line-1’s second underground section (Package KNPCC-06) last week started lowering their 2nd machine (S-639B) at Kanpur Central Station – see details & pics.

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– TMRG