Pune Metro Tunnel Construction Under Mutha River Begins
Pune, 2nd April 2021: Construction of the tunnel for Pune Metro under the Mutha River in the city has started from Wednesday. It will take another 8 to 10 days to complete the entire tunnel under the 80-meter wide bed of the river, said Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (Mahametro).
According to the information given by the Mahametro officials, after the completion of the first tunnel by the tunnel boring machine (TBM) named ‘Mutha’ of the same river, the work of the second tunnel will start in the second fortnight of April through the TBM called ‘Mula’. The construction of both the tunnels will be completed by the end of April.
Mahametro has already completed the work of two tunnels of 1600 meters between Shivajinagar and Civil Court. Construction of the tunnel under the river began on Wednesday after the machine entered the riverbed last week. The entire river basin is 150 meters wide and the water channel is 80 meters wide.
The work of the first tunnel has been started by TBM at a depth of 13 meters from the bottom of the Mutha river. There are no obstacles in the construction of the tunnel as it is a hard rock under the river. This work will be completed on time, said Brijesh Dixit, Managing Director, Mahametro.
Meanwhile, this is the third experiment in the country to construct a tunnel under the river. Earlier, Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation has constructed a tunnel for ‘Metro-3’ under Mithi River; Also, a tunnel has been constructed under the Hooghly River for the Kolkata Metro. Now, tunnelling has started under the Mutha River.
