Metro will run under your house

Metro rail will literally come home for a few Chennaiites. Its tunnels would run under certain houses in George Town, Mannadi, Chintadri-pet and Shenoy Nagar.A section of the curved underground tunnels would cut through buildings in the aforesaid city pockets. However, there was no reason to panic as the tunnels would be nine metres beneath the surface, senior CMRL (Chennai Metro Rail Limited) officials told DC. They said protective girders and diaphragm walls would keep the tunnels intact.In fact, people above would not feel even a single vibration when engineers bore holes in the ground as fully-computerised boring machines will alter speed according to the nature of the soil. The machines are equipped to excavate without disturbing the structures above.CMRL had identified as many as 240 spots in George Town/Mannadi, 110 in Chintadripet and 53 in Shenoy Nagar for the underground metro route, officials said.Chennai Metro Water and CMRL would jointly serve notices to people under whose houses the metro will run to close down their bore wells. The residents have to inform their decisions within 15 days of receipt of the notices to enable CMRL to dig alternative bore wells or pay `1 lakh compensation.