Much to the relief of hundreds of children, Chennai Metro Rail has decided to spare the playground of Good Shepherd School in Nungambakkam, that they had earlier planned to acquire for building a station.
For phase II project, Chennai Metro Rail wanted to take over a substantial piece of land in Good Shepherd School to build the Sterling Road station. This station to be built as an undeground one will be a part of the stretch from Madhavaram to SIPCOT. After making some changes in the design, Chennai Metro Rail decided to leave the playground and acquire an adjacent building, that houses elementary classes.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), they have acquired 17,495 sq.ft of land from the school and paid them an amount, which they refused to disclose. “We will not touch the playground. Instead, we have acquired a building where elementary classes are run. Now, with the money we have paid, the school will construct another building inside their premises to have the elementary classes and have been given one year’s time for it. Once they shift, we will demolish this existing building and begin our construction later,” an official said.
Recently, CMRL officials said, they formed a private negotiation committee for handling land acquistions for the phase II project.
In total, Chennai Metro Rail will need 117.12 hectares to build the phase II project that aims to cover 118.9 km of the city touching north and southern parts of the city with 128 stations at various locations. They have already sent out notices to various land owners in the past year to begin construction sometime this year.
The school authorities did not want to comment on the issue.