After more than 15 years of negotiations, the Railway Board has approved the draft agreement for transferring Chennai’s MRTS assets, operations and maintenance to the Tamil Nadu government, clearing a major institutional hurdle towards eventual management by Chennai Metro Rail Limited. The transfer itself is not yet complete: the MoU must be executed before the formal handover begins.
Chennai’s long-pending plan to integrate the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) with the city’s Metro-led urban transport network has moved substantially closer to implementation after the Railway Board approved the draft Memorandum of Understanding governing the transfer.
The Ministry of Railways conveyed approval of the draft MoU to Southern Railway in a letter dated August 12, 2026. The agreement establishes the framework under which MRTS assets, operations and maintenance responsibilities will be handed from Southern Railway to the Tamil Nadu government, which intends to place the system under Chennai Metro Rail Limited.
This is an important project-stage distinction: the Railway Board has cleared the draft transfer framework; CMRL has not yet completed the takeover.
Once the agreement is formally executed, the draft provides for a 90-day handover period. During that phase, Tamil Nadu is expected to deploy personnel for functions including ticketing, housekeeping and security. Southern Railway would continue handling core train operations and maintenance—including crews and existing EMU rolling stock—for a further 24-month transition period without charging the State for those functions.
Ticket checking would remain with the Railways during the transition, while fare and non-fare revenue collected by the State would be remitted to Southern Railway. Tamil Nadu will simultaneously have to prepare its own operational capability, rolling stock and supporting systems before assuming full responsibility.
The transition also involves infrastructure interfaces that cannot simply be administratively separated. Southern Railway is expected to retain shared operational use at Chennai Beach, while the agreement identifies works at Chennai Fort and the constraint posed by the single-line section between Beach and Fort.
The institutional integration comes months after MRTS services were extended from Velachery to St Thomas Mount in March 2026, creating a direct interchange with both Chennai Metro and the suburban railway network.
The takeover proposal itself dates back to 2011. As recently as February 2026, the Union government told Parliament that only in-principle approval had been granted and that the detailed MoU was still under preparation. The latest Railway Board clearance therefore represents a material advance from policy intent towards an executable transfer framework.
