Afcons Records Kanpur Metro Line-1’s Final TBM Breakthrough

Afcons Infrastructure – Sam India Consortium last week celebrated Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) Vidyarthi’s fourth breakthrough at Kanpur Central Station on 23.78 km Kanpur Metro Line-1 (Orange Line) connecting IIT Kanpur and Naubasta.

This breakthrough by TBM Vidyarthi (S-639B), a Herrenknecht Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) machine, marks the 8th and final breakthrough for Kanpur Metro Phase 1 project’s underground Package KNPCC-06 connecting Nayaganj Station – Transport Nagar Ramp.

Overall, this was Line-1’s 16th tunnel breakthrough with another 8 breakthroughs recorded earlier by Gulermak – Sam India Builtwell JV on the line’s 3.619 km Package KNPCC-05 connecting MacRobertganj Ramp – Nayaganj Station. That section became commercially operational this summer on May 30.

Here’s a list of Vidyarthi’s 4 tunneling drives for building the down-line tunnel:

• Kanpur Central Station to Nayaganj Station (1243m, Dec 2023 – June 2024) – see pics
• C&C Ramp at Swadeshi Cotton Mills to Transport Nagar Station (331m, Sept – Nov 2024) – see pics
• Transport Nagar Station to Jhakarkatti Station (714m, Jan – Apr 2025)
• Jhakarkatti Station to Kanpur Central Station (944m, June – Oct 2025) – this post!

Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) had awarded Afcons – SAM JV with 4.65 km KNPCC-06’s contract in March 2022 with a 36 month deadline and value of Rs. 1087.67 crore (INR 1062,02,00,000 + EURO 29,00,000).

This section connects Nayaganj Station and Transport Nagar Ramp via 3 underground stations at Kanpur Central, Jhakarkatti and Transport Nagar.

TBM Azad (Herrenknecht S-640B) built the parallel up-line tunnel and finished its 4th and final tunneling drive on September 19.

With this development, major tunneling activity in Kanpur is now underway only on Package KNPCC-11 of 8.38 km Line-2 (Agriculture University – Barra-8). KPIL – Gulermak JV has deployed 3 TBMs there and has so far recorded 4 breakthroughs. Here’s my post on the third one by TBM Gomati. The fourth one was recorded by TBM Parvati (Rawatpur to Kakadeo) towards the end of September.

UPMRC has been quick to operationalize their lines and I reckon we should see the rest of Line-1, Kanpur Central to Naubasta which includes 4.3 km elevated Package KNPCC-12, opening up for commercial operations in Q4 2026.

For more updates, check out the Kanpur Metro section or my Home Page! Sign up for free instant email notifications on new posts over here. Like this post? Get early-access to updates and support the site over here.

– TMRG