Maha-Metro launches under river tunnelling in Pune

The Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (Maha-Metro) has started tunnelling work beneath the Mutha river near Shivajinagar for the Pune metro project. The tunnel will be 1.6 km long from Agriculture College to Shivajinagar, via the civil court and Budhwar Peth. After completing this tunnel, Pune will be the fourth city after Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, where an underground Metro line crosses a river. Director, Atul Gadgil, informed that they just entered the river bed of the Mutha river where the total width of the river bed is 90 metres and of that, water is flowing along a 30-35 metre stretch and the remaining part of the river bed is dry. The tunnel boring machines will reach below the water in two-three days as currently, they are 18 metres beneath ground level. From the Swargate side, they have completed more than 100 metres of tunnelling work so far and have a lot of work to do in the Mandai area. The rail level below the surface of the Mutha river is 28 metres, the lowest point on the metro route. The tunnel will be six metres below the lowest point and after that, there is a seven-metre ridge of the tunnel. The Pune metro has an underground stretch measuring 5.019-km on its PCMC to Swargate corridor with five underground stations and at three stations Maha-Metro is erecting multi-modal hubs.