Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget announcement speech revealed that the budget allocated for Chennai Metro corporation has been cut from Rs. 89,000 crores to Rs. 61,843 crores.
The Finance Minister in her Budget session speech brought attention to the add on expenditures due to the pandemic that was imposed on the government and hence has forced the Centre to impose cuts on certain allocations. CMRL is one of those.
She told that the nation currently has about 702 km of the conventional metro which is spread vastly over 27 cities. Also indicating that about 1016 km is under construction, she made it clear that cost-cutting is unavoidable. Moreover to attain the same level of security, convenience and experience two new technologies MetroNeo and MetroLite have been introduced in tier-2 and peripheral areas of tier-1 cities. Earlier in February 2020, CMRL also started the construction of the first MetroLite project connection Velachery and Tambaram.
Along with this, the finance minister also announced that several other metro departments would also face the same budget cuts as in CMRL. Adding to this, the construction of the depot at SIPCOT was also being scrapped.
Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) phase-2 has an expanse of 118.9 km spread through the metropolitan and was expected to cost Rs. 63,246 crores. The construction of the project was flagged in November 2020 by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. At the time of the launch, the Home Minister was humbly requested by Edapaddi K Palaniswami, the Chief Minister of the State to assist on a 50-50 per cent basis monetary contribution by Centre and State to meet the cost of the project.
The network from Power House of Kodambakkam to Poonamallee is set to be taken in the last quarter of this year and would be the first rail line to undergo construction. The proposed timeline is by 2026, up to which the whole phase-2, split into three corridors will be ready and would provide connectivity to the far-flung hubs like Shollinganallur, SIPCOT, Madhavaram and city’s other core areas.
