The pace of construction of Kanpur Metro Rail Project is unprecedented as 400 U-girders have been placed so far on viaduct out of the total 622 to be placed on the 9 km long Priority Corridor running from IIT to Motijheel with 9 elevated stations.
As a result, base of metro track for around 5 km has been completed so far out of the total length of 9 km of Priority Corridor.
Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) aims to start operation of metro trains on 9 km long Priority Corridor from December this year. On completion as per deadline, Kanpur Metro will become the fastest built and commissioned metro project in the world.
AFCONS has won the contract for this work in September 2019 with Bombardier Transportation (now acquired by Alstom) won contract to provide rolling stock and signaling systems for the project in July 2020.
Kanpur Metro also become the first metro in India to use double T-girders for a metro rail corridor which saves cost and time to a great extent. The casting of all 439 double T-girders has been already completed and the erection of these double T-girders is completed on 8 metro stations out of the total 9 metro stations on Priority Corridor.
UPMRC has also come up with an another innovation in the form of ‘Twin pier Cap’ which is constructed for the Kanpur Metro depot line which will run from Gurudev to Geeta Nagar connecting the mainline and the Polytechnic Metro Depot.
According to the Managing Director of UPMRC, Kumar Keshav, “Twin Pier Cap is the second such successful innovation after the double T-girder, which has been implemented in the Kanpur Metro Project for the first time in the Metro Rail sector of India and it is a matter of pride for all of us. The credit for this goes to the research and innovation based working style of our metro engineers. The entire team of UPMRC, civil contractor AFCONS and the General Consultants deserve applause on this achievement. I am quite confident that the Kanpur Metro Rail Project will emerge as a paradigm for all other Metro Rail Projects in the country.”
In Phase-1 of Kanpur Metro Rail project, two corridors will be built. The first corridor (Red Line), with length 23.7 km, will have 22 metro stations and the second corridor (Blue Line), with length 8.6 km, will have 8 metro stations. Trail run is expected to start on Priority Corridor by November this year.