Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) achieved another tunnelling milestone in Phase-II on Tuesday with the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) ‘Kaveri’ breaking through at Kilpauk Medical College (KMC) Station after completing a 685-metre underground drive from Chetpet.
The downline tunnelling between Chetpet and KMC was completed in 252 days, with the TBM negotiating several challenging stretches, including five live Southern Railway tracks, the Chetpet Eco Park lake and buildings within the Kilpauk Medical College campus.
According to CMRL, the TBM passed beneath the railway tracks with an approximate overburden of 18 metres while the stretch beneath the lake and KMC buildings had an overburden of 21 to 26 metres. The tunnelling also involved working near the existing Phase-I Metro tunnels, with a minimum clearance of 6.1 metres between the Phase-I and Phase-II tunnels.
The tunnel was executed by Larsen & Toubro. CMRL said the drive was completed without any major ground settlement or adverse impact on existing infrastructure. Ten cutterhead interventions were carried out during the tunnelling operation.
The Chetpet-KMC tunnelling work involved two TBMs — ‘Tamarabharani’ for the upline and ‘Kaveri’ for the downline. Tamarabharani had achieved its breakthrough on November 26, 2025, while Kaveri completed the downline drive on
Tuesday.
The latest breakthrough is the ninth TBM breakthrough under the TU02 contract, CMRL
said.
The Chetpet-KMC tunnelling section is part of Corridor-3 of Phase-II. The tunnelling work between the two stations had commenced with the deployment of the two TBMs, with the latest breakthrough marking the completion of the downline
tunnel.
CMRL Managing Director Ashish Chatterjee, Director (Projects) T. Archunan and senior officials from CMRL, consultants and Larsen & Toubro witnessed the breakthrough at KMC
Station.
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