Kanpur Metro’s TBM Nana Records Final Breakthrough at Chunniganj

Gulermak – Sam India Builtwell JV today celebrated tunnel boring machine (TBM) S93’s final breakthrough at Chunniganj Station of the 32.4 km Kanpur Metro Phase 1 project.

This was TBM S93’s fourth and final tunnel breakthrough and the 7th of 8 breakthroughs planned in the project’s 3.619 km long Package KNPCC-05 connecting MacRobertganj Ramp – Nayaganj Station.

This 6.52m diameter and 120m long Terratec TBM, nicknamed Nana after Nana Saheb Peshwa, was deployed to build a portion of the up-line tunnel of Kanpur’s 23.785 km Line-1 (IIT Kanpur – Naubasta). Its fourth drive was completed in roughly 70 days.

Here’s a list of all drives completed by TBM Nana so far:

• Bada Chauraha to Nayaganj (1025m) – December 2022
• Chunniganj to Naveen Market (748m) – June 2023
• Naveen Market to Bada Chauraha (516m) – September 2023
• MacRobertganj to Chunniganj (420m) – February 2024 (this post!)

Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) had awarded Gulermak – Sam India with Package KNPCC-05’s construction contract in March 2021 with a 36 month deadline.

Besides constructing twin tunnels, they’ll be building 4 stations at Chunniganj, Naveen Market, Bada Chauraha and Nayaganj, each 215m long.

With this development, Line-1’s upline tunnel has been built all the way from MacRobertganj Ramp to Nayaganj – a distance of roughly 3.6 km including 3 cut & cover station boxes.

TBM Nana will now be dismantled, stored and likely get deployed for tunneling again in early 2025 at Kanpur Metro Line-2’s underground Package KNPCC-11 which was awarded to Kalpataru Projects International Ltd. – Gulermak JV in December 2023.

Gulermak – Sam’s 2nd TBM (S92 nicknamed Tatya) working on the down-line tunnel was re-commissioned from MacRobertganj Ramp a few weeks after TBM Nana. I haven’t heard of any major issues being encountered, so we should expect its final breakthrough to happen around mid-March.

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– TMRG