Work on LIC, Thousand Lights Metro stations still on.

With their inauguration planned next week, the LIC and Thousand Lights Metro stations still have quite a bit of work to be completed.

A team of officials from the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) has been checking the 10-km stretch from AG-DMS to Washermanpet, the final stretch of phase I project of Chennai Metro Rail.

On Sunday, from 10 a.m. till 8.30 p.m., they inspected the Chennai Central, LIC and Thousand Lights Metro stations. “Still, some work needs to be done at the LIC and Thousand Lights Metro stations. The false ceiling has to be installed and the officials of Chennai Metro Rail have promised that it will be over in four-five days,” an official of the CMRS said.

Also, the passenger information display system was not working in one of the stations. “There is also some infringement [in structure] which needs to be corrected,” he said. The teams checked various other facilities in stations and found them to be operational. “We asked them to demonstrate the functioning of platform screen doors [the protective safety door between the platform and train] in stations and they worked well,” he said.

On Monday, the CMRS team will conduct trials of trains in this network and check for problems and see if they are fit for passenger operations. There have been several issues related to signalling that affected the running of trains in the past few months in the operational stretches. When asked, the official said, “We will see if there are signalling issues during the train testing tomorrow [Monday].”

The documents related to the working of this will also be scrutinised again on Monday. In a few days, the CMRS will release a report, directing the Chennai Metro Rail to take any necessary changes or corrective action to be carried out. Soon after that, the final approval of certificate will be released, after which the stretch between AG-DMS and Washermanpet can be thrown open to the public.

THE HINDU