Pune’s underground metro work: Maha-Metro begins laying vertical shafts, eye 2021 deadline

The Maharashtra metro rail corporation (Maha-Metro) has commenced with work for the vertical shafts at Swargate and Agricultural College to facilitate the entry of tunnel boring machines and start the tunnel excavation work.

The Maha-Metro has also floated tenders for carrying out the underground metro rail and is expecting to finalise the tenders by August. It is expected that the actual work of digging the tunnel would start on the ground by October or November, said Pramod Ahuja, executive director for underground metro rail, Pune. 

Ahuja said the underground metro, which is a part of the Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation (PCMC) to Swargate corridor, will start from Range hills, or more specifically from Agriculture ground, and end at Swargate. The underground metro route is about five kilometres with five stations located at Shivajingar, Civil Court, Budhwar peth, Mandai and Swargate.

The depth of the underground metro corridor is between 16 and 25 metres from ground level. The maximum depth will be at Civil Court where the underground rail crosses the Mutha river. The tunnel at Civic Court would be 7 to 8 metres below river level. 

Ahuja said, “The Maha-Metro has set a target to complete both the PCMC to Swargate and Vanaz to Ramwadi Metro corridors by 2021 and will definitely achieve it.”

Instead of wasting time waiting for the tendering process to be complete, the Maha-Metro is keeping the vertical shafts ready. The shafts will have a size of 25x25 metres and will be useful for the tunnel boring machines to enter the ground and begin tunnelling. 

Once the tunnel boring machines enter into the ground, the general public will not able to notice where the work is on as it will all be done below the land.