Jayalalithaa: Following Delhi

Chennai, April 12: After Calcutta and New Delhi, it?s the southern metro?s turn to go underground.

Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa today announced in the Assembly her government?s intention to build a three-corridor, partly underground metro rail system in the state capital.

The model for the project will be the New Delhi metro, which was flagged off in 2002, and not Calcutta ? where underground rail took off in 1984, though work began way back in 1972.

The first phase of the Chennai project is estimated to cost Rs 5,086.85 crore. It would be implemented between 2005 and 2010.

A study was carried out by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which gave its feasibility nod to the project, the chief minister said.

Delhi?s metro authorities had also taken up the study on a proposed underwater railway in Calcutta. But the project was shelved as the Bengal government said it could not shell out Rs 2,400 crore as its share in the project.

Chennai adds 600 vehicles each day but roads cover 3 to 4 per cent of the total land area, Jayalalithaa pointed out.

Between 1984 and 2004, the number of vehicles in the city has shot up by more than 10 times, from 1.4 lakh to 16 lakh.

The Delhi metro corporation has recommended developing the Chennai metro along three corridors.

Corridors I and II would be taken up in the first phase.

The first will cover 31.54 km from Tiruvottiyur in the north to the airport along the arterial Anna Salai. Of this, about 8.4 km could be underground and the rest will be an elevated railway ?at the central median of the corridors?, Jayalalithaa said.

The second corridor will cover 13.54 km from Chennai Beach to Koyambedu, along Periyar EVR Salai. The two corridors would cater to about 10.56 lakh commuters everyday.

The third corridor would come up later in the second phase.