By Simran Shrivastava:
MAHARASHTRA Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) has finally submitted the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for extending the Phase-II metro alignment in the Northern corridor (Orange Line) from Kamptee up to Kanhan river. The extension, estimated at around Rs 300 crore, has completed internal clearances within the organisation and now awaits final approval from State and Union Government. This marks a decisive planning milestone for the proposed 1.3 km addition, said a Metro official. Officials said, Metro got a demand for taking up the extension because residents of Kanhan region do daily updown from Butibori and other places. Further, many of the people from Kanhan are dependent on Nagpur city markets. Hence, decision to extend the link upto Kanhan was decided. The proposed stretch is engineered to include a 500-metre steel viaduct across the Kanhan River.
The addition has raised the operational footprint of Phase-II to beyond 45 km and increased the number of stations on the Kamptee route from 12 to 13, integrating Kanhan into the metrogrid planned for the region. The DPR positions the extension as a strategic mobility intervention for settlements and industrial activity beyond Kanhan, strengthening last-mile connectivity in the Northern periphery, while preserving continuity with the approved Phase II framework.
By documenting alignment geometry, structural typology, cost architecture, and integration logistics, the report places before decision-makers the full technical and planning rationale required at the approval stage. The extension is intended to serve thousands of residents in the Kanhan area and surrounding industrial pockets by linking them directly to the metro spine envisioned under Phase II.
The proposal underscores that the river crossing, station augmentation, and alignment continuity have been resolved at the planning level, enabling authorities to evaluate the project on fully articulated technical and financial parameters. The submission comes amid the broader national emphasis on capital expenditure and infrastructure-led growth, where urban mobility projects continue to form a central pillar of public investment strategy. The Kamptee-Kanhan addition will represent a calibrated expansion of the metro network, extending its reach deeper into the northern growth corridor while maintaining structural and operational harmony with the existing Phase-II design. "Now after State Government studies the DPR, it will forward the proposal to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA) for latter’s clearance, after this it will come back to metro," the official noted. On why Metro made a different DPR than the one for Phase-II, the official said that because the demand came much later, they had to do this separately.
