In mid-February, the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) submitted the revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Airport-Kilambakkam metro project to the Tamil Nadu government. “The DPR proposes the construction of the elevated corridor in the first level and the metro corridor in the next level. It was prepared as per the suggestions of the State’s Highways Department,” M A Siddique, Managing Director, CMRL, told Citizen Matters Chennai. 

Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, while presenting the state budget on March 14th, said the DPR would be forwarded to the union government. Estimated to cost Rs 9,335 crore, the metro line is among many high-budget projects the state would submit to the union government for equity contribution in 2025-26. 

But these developments do not bring hope to South Chennai residents who have been awaiting the project’s launch the past five years. In fact, the idea of constructing two corridors was first floated four years ago, but was ruled out due to cost concerns. While the nodal agencies continue to go back and forth with DPR revisions, lakhs of South Chennai residents are spending more time on their daily commute in the absence of the crucial metro line. 

A key metro line for over a lakh commuters

According to the first DPR of the project submitted in 2021,  the daily ridership in this stretch is projected to be 1.5 lakh in 2026. 

The metro line is important as the recently inaugurated Kilambakkam bus terminus has poor connectivity, leaving commuters with the sole option of using local buses that inch through heavy traffic on the GST Road. Construction of the suburban railway station at Kilambakkam has been delayed as well.

In the absence of the metro line, thousands of college students and office goers who commute to the city have to use a minimum of two public transport vehicles.

Rohit Goutam, a 19-year-old college student from Tambaram, takes a suburban train till St Thomas Mount and then the metro to reach his college in Vadapalani. “Suburban trains are always crowded. If the Mount-Kilambakkam metro stretch is operational, I could cut down my commute time and avoid taking multiple transport modes,” Rohit said. 

The Airport-Kilambakkam metro line, proposed to be built above GST Road, would serve numerous educational institutions such as SRM University and VIT.

The distance of around 15 km from the airport to Kilambakkam bus terminus takes an average of 50 minutes in the day due to traffic, said E Anbarasan, a cab driver. “I can drive the same distance in less than 20 minutes at night. The stretch has unavoidable traffic blocks at Pallavaram bus stand, Saravana Stores, Chrompet bus stand, West Tambaram junction, Irumbuliyur flyover, Perungalathur and Iraniamman Koil,” he said. 

Read more: Five reasons why it takes half an hour to travel a kilometre on GST Road

The metro line is crucial for reducing commuters’ travel costs as well as the traffic congestion on GST Road.  

“The construction of suburban railway stations should also be prioritised. Right now, city residents are getting down at Guduvanchery or Vandalur railway station and relying on over-priced autos or overcrowded buses,” said K P Subramanian, former professor of urban engineering at Anna University. 

Four DPRs submitted since 2021, project cost doubled

While the DPRs of Madurai and Coimbatore Metros were approved in seven months, the Airport-Kilambakkam project has suffered administrative delays. Even Chennai’s new phase 2 metro projects, which were planned after the Airport-Kilambakkam line under phase 1, are nearing completion. 

“The DPRs of Madurai and Coimbatore Metros were forwarded to the union government immediately for approval and funding assistance. Tamil Nadu government approved Chennai’s Phase 2 project (with a whopping cost of Rs 63,246 crore) in just 21 days,”  said Dayanand Krishnan, an RTI activist from Chitlapakkam, backed up with responses from a dozen RTI queries from various government agencies. 

The DPR of any metro project has to be approved by the state government and cabinet, after which it is sent to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Eventually, the union cabinet has to approve the project as central funding is involved.

In the case of the Airport-Kilambakkam line, this is the fourth time CMRL has submitted the DPR to the state government. The first DPR was submitted in November 2021, the second one in September 2022 with an estimated project cost of Rs 4,625 cr, and the third in December 2022. The project cost in the current DPR is double that of the 2021 and 2022 DPR estimates.

In fact, a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu had directed the concerned departments to approve the DPR in November 2022 itself. “It was mutually agreed that the metro rail corridor could be constructed at level 2 to facilitate the highways department to construct an express highway at level 1 at a later stage. Three years later, the crux of the DPR remains the same,” said Dayanand.

There was another plan to construct the metro corridor at the first level, and to shelve the express highway project by building grade separators at major traffic junctions. The CMRL and the state’s highways department kept going back and forth with these two plans for five years.

Dayanand also points to delays in DPR preparation from the start. “The tender for preparing the DPR was first floated in 2019. As per CMRL’s RTI reply, the estimated time to prepare the DPR was four months. But that did not happen.” In the RTI response, CMRL said that the timeline for DPR preparation was extended due to ‘COVID disruptions and lockdown.’

Responding to this reporter’s questions on the project delay, M A Siddique said, “There were many challenges. It was tough to design the metro at locations where flyovers existed. One such difficult stretch was the Outer Ring Road (ORR) which cannot be easily accessed when you are coming from the city. In the current design, the elevated corridor has a right turn to the ORR.” He added that such intricate details also increased the project cost. 

Finish the project within three years: Citizens

The delayed metro project follows a pattern of setbacks that almost every infrastructure project in South Chennai faces, unlike those in the core city areas. Calling it step-motherly treatment, Dayanand said, “Be it constructing underground drainage systems or stormwater drains or new roads, the suburb always got them last, only after repeated grievances.”

Read more: Chennai Metro Rail work: Must commuters risk life and limb for ‘a better tomorrow’?

“Phase 2 of metro rail will be completed in the city by 2027. By that time, this line should be functional, and only then the purpose of metro connectivity between the core city and Kilambakkam would be served,” he added.

Now that the DPR has been submitted, residents feel the next procedures should be sped up. “CMRL has sizable experience with metro construction, and these basic delays including that for land acquisition cannot happen. With pre-casting and other construction techniques, the Airport-Kilambakkam line can be operational in less than three years,” said Varathan Ananthappan, an RTI activist from Madipakkam. 

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