Two crucial projects to be developed by Chennai Metro Rail at Thirumangalam and Vadapalani have suffered a delay of a few months.
While at Thirumangalam, the Chennai Metro Rail’s plan was to integrate the upcoming station in the 118.9-km phase II network (with three corridors) with four towers where people can shop, dine, or work, and hop onto a train to commute; at Vadapalani, a depot with an integrated bus terminal and commercial complex was to come up.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), though they had floated bids last year for carrying out the construction of these two projects, it had to be discharged owing to exorbitant quotes placed by bidders.
“This is because prospective bidders had submitted steep quotes for both the projects and it was not unjustified at all. We cannot go ahead with such prices. We modified the bids again to prevent this issue from occurring again. So, for Thirumangalam, we already floated the bids sometime back and once the Model Code of Conduct, which was imposed for the elections, is lifted, we will award the contract. As far as Vadapalani’s project is concerned, we will issue the bids shortly. There is only a minor delay of a month or two,” an official said.
