Chennai Metro’s ‘Nilgiris‘ reaches Madhavaram High Road after tunneling for 1.4 km

Nine months after Chief Minister M.K. Stalin launched the first tunnel boring machine (TBM) named “Nilgiris” at Madhavaram Milk Colony, the machine created a 1.4 km tunnel and on Monday reached its next stop — Madhavaram High Road — as part of Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) phase II project.

Nine months after Chief Minister M.K. Stalin launched the first tunnel boring machine (TBM) named “Nilgiris” at Madhavaram Milk Colony, the machine created a 1.4 km tunnel and on Monday reached its next stop — Madhavaram High Road — as part of Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) phase II project.

Sources said the machine drilled underneath 300 houses and none of the structures suffered any damage so far. “Since the soil strata was sandy, we didn’t face any issue. We wanted to be cautious as it was the first machine which was launched, we wanted to be careful to ensure there are no issues for the residents,” an official said.

T. Archunan, director (projects) of CMRL, said, of the 19 TBMs deployed so far for the phase II project, two machines have seen the breakthrough (where TBM has bored successfully from one location and reached the next). There will be about 50 such breakthrough events for all the 23 TBMs which will be engaged for the project. Four more TBMs will be taken to Nathamuni site in corridor 5 and will start work in the coming months.

“While nearly 15,000 workers are employed for the phase II project, 700 workers have been putting in hundreds of hours of labour over the last nine months to achieve this breakthrough,” he said.

“Nilgiris” will next be deployed in Purasawalkam after two months.