The last phase of Metro tunneling work in Mandai to Kasba Peth section has slowed down because of harder rock underneath. The work, which was expected to get over by April end, will now take another two to three weeks to get completed.
The Pune Metro’s underground section will cover a distance of 5 km. Over 90% tunneling work has already been completed and two parallel tunnels are being constructed for up and down lines each. An official with the MahaMetro said, “The alignment of tunnels is between Shivajingar and Swargate. Hard rock has been found on the entire underground stretch, however, on the Mandai-Kasba Peth stretch, we found harder rock spread on about 400- metre length. This has slowed down the excavation work by at least eight days”.
The alignment of the tunnel hasn’t been changed because of the harder rock, however, the excavation speed has been lowered. “It was a challenging task to excavate the tunnel through a hard rock. Our teams were constantly checking the technical parameters during the excavation. The tunnelling work is gathering pace again, as the tunnel boring machine has progressed beyond the hard-rock patch,” said the official with the MahaMetro.
The tunnels on the Shivajinagar to Kasba Peth section are ready but the work on the Mandai to Kasba Peth section is pending. Though a May-end target has been set to finish the excavation, officials with the MahaMetro said they were hoping to get over with the ongoing work before the deadline and the arrival of monsoon.
