CHENNAI: The Union housing ministry has rebuffed Tamil Nadu's bid to revive stalled metro rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai, rejecting state government arguments on ridership, travel-time savings and population thresholds in a pointed rebuke that leaves both schemes in limbo.
In a letter dated July 22 to the state's chief secretary, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) disputed nearly every technical justification advanced by Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) and the state government for the two projects, arguing that the underlying detailed project reports overstate the case for elevated rail over cheaper bus-based alternatives.
The exchange, which began with a MoHUA note last year, centres on whether Coimbatore and Madurai — Tamil Nadu's second- and third-largest urban centres — generate enough demand and time savings to justify metro systems, or whether upgraded bus rapid transit would serve just as well at a fraction of the cost.
On travel time, the ministry rejected CMRL's calculation that metro would cut a 7.5km peak-hour trip by eight minutes, or 35 per cent, over road transport. Factoring in walking and waiting time at stations, MoHUA said, "there will be hardly any savings in time by metro" — and noted that time and cost savings typically become decisive drivers of modal shift only for trips of 15km or more, well above the average trip lengths CMRL cited for both cities.
A top government official, reacting to the rejection, told TNIE that the ministry's position reflects lessons drawn from smaller cities that have already built metro systems. Journey times in such cities are inherently short regardless of network length, the official said, and once the time taken to reach a station from street level at the origin — and back down to street level at the destination — is added in, the net time saved by rail over road is negligible. That dynamic, the official said, has depressed ridership in cities such as Indore, and is likely why the Centre is now reluctant to sanction metro rail in any new city.
The ministry was equally unpersuaded on ridership grounds independent of that broader concern. It said CMRL had tried to justify higher projected ridership for Coimbatore's shorter corridor than for Chennai's much larger metro network, while itself conceding that Coimbatore's city bus system remains underdeveloped. A metro without adequate feeder bus services and last-mile connectivity "cannot fetch ridership," the letter said.
MoHUA repeatedly linked that weakness to Tamil Nadu's non-participation in the Centre's PM e-Bus Sewa scheme, which it said could have strengthened city bus fleets in both Coimbatore and Madurai and provided the last-mile links metro ridership depends on.
On population thresholds, the ministry disputed the state's use of 2022 planning-year estimates — 29.7 lakh for Coimbatore and 29.15 lakh for Madurai — to clear the two million mark required under the Metro Rail Policy, 2017. Going by 2011 Census data, MoHUA said, Coimbatore's core municipal corporation area houses only 15.84 lakh people, with much of the wider local planning area population unlikely to use a metro confined largely to the city corporation limits.
The ministry also flagged land acquisition risk, noting that the state had acknowledged less than 20-metre right of way along stretches of the proposed Coimbatore corridors, implying likely demolition of structures during construction — and pointed to slow execution on existing projects as a cautionary benchmark. Chennai Metro's Phase I, sanctioned in 2009, took a decade to complete; Phase II, launched in 2020, has achieved only 54.62 per cent physical progress to date.
The ministry clarified it had no objection in principle to either at-grade or elevated bus rapid transit systems, and reiterated that population size alone was not a prerequisite for metro approval — a caveat that appeared aimed at closing off further appeal on that ground. Both proposals, it said, "have been returned after examining the proposal in entirety."
Tamil Nadu has renewed its push for Metro rail systems in Coimbatore and Madurai earlier this year after then Chief Minister M K Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Centre to reconsider its rejection of the two projects. This also comes during the review of all Metro Rail projects on July 22 by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay.
Factfile:
1. MoHUA says metro's 8-minute edge over road claimed by CMRL vanishes once station access/egress and waiting time are counted in
2. Ministry cites underdeveloped city bus networks in Coimbatore and Madurai as a barrier to metro ridership — echoing Indore's experience, per official sources
3. Tamil Nadu's non-participation in the Centre's PM e-Bus Sewa scheme flagged repeatedly as a missed chance to fix last-mile connectivity
4. MoHUA rejects 2022 projections (Coimbatore: 29.7 lakh; Madurai: 29.15 lakh), says 2011 Census remains the valid base — puts Coimbatore's core city population at just 15.84 lakh5. Chennai Metro cited as cautionary benchmark — Phase I took 10 years (2009-19); Phase II, launched 2020, only 54.62% complete
1. Both DPRs "returned after examining the proposal in entirety"; MoHUA open to BRTS instead, signalling no new metro sanctions for smaller cities