Photo: TamizhanEditor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will open the first section of Chennai Metro’s long-awaited Phase 2 network on Sunday, October 11, and launch, dedicate or lay the foundation stones of projects worth more than ₹13,000 crore across Tamil Nadu, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The day begins at around 11.30 am with a metro ride between Porur Bypass and Poonamallee Bypass stations and back. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay is expected to be among the first passengers with him.
The new metro line
The 15-km Poonamallee-Vadapalani stretch is part of Corridor 4, also called the Yellow Line, and was built at a cost of about ₹4,900 crore. It has 11 elevated stations, a 3.7-km double-decker section and signalling designed to support driverless trains. Officials expect it to cut travel time between Chennai’s fast-growing western suburbs and the city centre.
Commuters can use the line only after the official programme ends, from 4 pm to 9 pm on Sunday. From Monday, October 12, trains will run from 7 am to 9 pm:
- every 10 minutes in peak hours (8 am-11 am and 5 pm-8 pm) on weekdays and Saturdays
- every 15 minutes at other times
- every 15 minutes all day on Sundays and public holidays
These hours are shorter than the 5 am-11 pm schedule on Phase 1, so that construction can continue at night on six more stations between Porur Junction and Vadapalani. Frequency will improve once that work is finished, according to reports. Work on the 118.9-km Phase 2 network began nearly six years ago, and this first stretch opens about ten months later than planned.
Roads, rail, ports and a refinery
The PMO said the larger package includes national highway projects worth about ₹3,700 crore, among them the 36-km Vadugapatti-Therkuvenganallur section of NH-744 and a 30-km Madurai Ring Road section. Railway works worth over ₹750 crore include the Karaikal-Peralam line, three rail flyovers in and around Coimbatore, and five redeveloped Amrit Bharat stations at Palani, Vellore Cantonment, Ambasamudram, Paramakkudi and Namakkal.
There are also projects at Chennai Port, Kamarajar Port and V.O. Chidambaranar Port, including an upgraded cruise terminal in Chennai, and the foundation stone for a ₹1,620-crore unit at Chennai Petroleum Corporation’s Manali refinery to make base oils for premium lubricants.
Brain research at IIT Madras
At IIT Madras, Mr. Modi will dedicate the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre and launch its mission to build three-dimensional, cell-level atlases of more than 100 human brains across the lifespan, from the foetal stage to old age. He will also release C-STROKE, an atlas of a stroke-affected brain built from over 1,000 annotated microscope sections, meant to help researchers look for new treatments.
What’s next
After visiting the Jalakandeswarar Temple, the Prime Minister is scheduled to address the main projects event at around 1.30 pm and attend the golden jubilee of Jaigopal Garodia Hindu Vidyalaya school at about 3 pm.
