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Nagpur Metro Delays 2025: Why Expansion Stalls Across All Phases

Nagpur Metro Delays 2025: Why Expansion Stalls Across All Phases
Nagpur Metro Delays 2025: Why Expansion Stalls Across All Phases

Nagpur’s ambitious metro rail project has been making headlines for its achievements and setbacks. In late 2024, commuters finally saw the Indora Square station open after months of frustrating delays that even sparked public protests.


At the same time, a much-touted regional “broad gauge” metro plan lies stalled, seemingly abandoned after years in limbo. These examples underscore a common theme: critical transport projects in the city and across Vidarbha are often slowed not by lack of vision or funds, but by bureaucratic hurdles.


As 2025 unfolds, Nagpur stands at a crossroads where the promise of modern mobility is tempered by the reality of administrative delays.


Phase I: Last Station Opens After Long Delay


Phase I of the Nagpur Metro was officially completed by the end of 2022, with two lines covering about 38 km and 38 stations.


However, one key station, Indora Square, remained unfinished and non-operational well into 2024 due to protracted land acquisition issues and regulatory approvals.

Construction at Indora Square could only begin in late 2022 after a six-year land dispute was resolved, making it the lone holdout while the rest of the network opened to the public. The station’s debut date was rescheduled multiple times in 2024, from April to June, then August, and again in November, as officials awaited clearance from the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS). “The report was submitted within two weeks, indicating that no major changes were necessary... Now, after receiving certification, we are ready to open the station for the general public,” Nagpur Metro’s project director Rajeev Tyagi said in late November 2024, once safety inspectors finally gave the green light.


When Indora Square station eventually opened on 20 December 2024, it marked the true completion of Phase I.


All Metro stations were at last operational, a milestone achieved roughly eighteen months later than planned.

The delay had real impacts on riders: in the interim, roughly 500–700 commuters had to travel to adjacent stops each day because Indora station was unavailable. Local residents and political groups even staged demonstrations earlier in the year over the holdup.


With the station now active, daily travel is more convenient for thousands of Nagpurians in neighbourhoods like Jaripatka and Pachpaoli.


Yet the episode served as an early lesson in how even “last-mile” setbacks, whether due to land disputes or paperwork, can undermine a project’s benefits and frustrate the public.


Phase II: Expansion Slowed by Approval Bottlenecks


Even as Phase I construction was wrapping up, Nagpur’s Metro authorities were eager to launch Phase II, a major expansion to connect more outlying areas.


The planning began in 2018, and the Maharashtra state cabinet approved the Phase II blueprint in early 2019.


But what followed was a long grind of government clearances. The detailed project report for Phase II spent months shuttling between state and central offices with little progress.

By late 2019, MahaMetro (the agency running Nagpur Metro) officials voiced open frustration that crucial files were stuck in Maharashtra’s Urban Development Department “for many weeks” without being forwarded to Delhi. “Every time there was an inordinate delay in clearing our files... we used to approach [then Chief Minister Devendra] Fadnavis. Now no one is in charge and the bureaucrats are working at snail’s pace,” one official lamented in November 2019, when the approvals seemed to have stalled amid a state leadership change.



It ultimately took three more years for Phase II to get a final nod. In December 2022, just ahead of a visit by the Prime Minister, the Union Cabinet sanctioned Nagpur Metro’s Phase II at a revised cost of ₹6,708 crore.


The central approval came with a trimmed scope. The plan now spans 43.8 km and 30 new stations, slightly scaled down from the 48.3 km and 35 stations envisioned earlier.

The foundation stone was promptly laid, and construction began in 2023. By mid-2025, the long-delayed expansion finally hit its stride. Viaducts and pillars are rising along all four proposed routes from the city centre toward Kamptee, Hingna, Butibori MIDC and other suburbs.


Officials have set a deadline of December 2027 to launch full operations of Phase II.

While work is now underway, the slow gestation of Phase II highlights how bureaucratic processes impede Nagpur’s metro growth.


The project lost momentum during those intervening years when paperwork sat waiting for signatures. The expansion’s rationale remains strong. It aims to provide faster, cleaner public transport to industrial hubs, educational institutions and residential areas on Nagpur’s outskirts, but meeting the 2027 deadline will require avoiding any further procedural holdups.


Phase II’s rocky start has, however, made planners more cognizant of the need to synchronise government coordination for timely execution.


Broad Gauge Metro: A Regional Link Stuck in Limbo


Perhaps the most striking victim of delay is the proposed Broad Gauge Metro, a separate project intended to dramatically improve regional connectivity in Vidarbha.


Announced with fanfare in 2018, this initiative envisaged running fast air-conditioned commuter trains on existing railway tracks to towns like Wardha, Ramtek, Narkhed and Bhandara, effectively extending “metro” connectivity far beyond Nagpur city.

A tripartite Memorandum of Understanding between Indian Railways, the state government and MahaMetro was signed in mid-2018 in the presence of prominent Vidarbha leaders, symbolising the project’s high-profile support.


The idea was that trains speeding at up to 120 km/h would cut travel times to Nagpur’s satellite towns to around an hour, and seamlessly link with the city’s urban metro network.


The enhanced connectivity promised not only quicker commutes but also “stronger industrial, educational and employment linkages across Vidarbha”, potentially boosting the region’s development.


Yet, four years later, the Broad Gauge Metro exists only on paper. The Railway Board approved its detailed report in 2019, and Maharashtra’s cabinet lent support in 2020.


Since then, the plan has languished awaiting a final clearance from the Union Urban Development Ministry in Delhi. “All preparatory work, including surveys, DPR, and state-level approvals, is complete. The proposal has been sent for final sanction to the Centre, and we are awaiting their response,” insiders at MahaMetro explained, illustrating that nothing more can move until the central government signs off.


In the meantime, no construction tenders have been issued, and successive budgets, both state and central, have allocated zero funds to this project.


Officials privately concede that the once “revolutionary” plan is now effectively shelved unless New Delhi revives it. As one report bluntly put it, the ambitious Broad Gauge Metro “now lies dead and buried” in bureaucratic limbo.


The human cost of this delay is borne by everyday travellers across the region. Without the high-speed metro link, people still face over two-hour road or train journeys between Nagpur and nearby districts.


Those long commutes often involve packed, ageing train coaches or highway buses on congested routes, a sharp contrast to the modern, efficient ride that was promised.


Highway traffic continues to grow, with more private vehicles adding to congestion and accidents, while an eco-friendly alternative sits unrealised.


Local observers have noted with irony that even a “double-engine government” (the same ruling party in Maharashtra and at the Centre) has not managed to get this project off the ground.

For many in Vidarbha, the stalling of the regional metro is a sobering reminder that grand infrastructure plans can be announced far more easily than they are executed.


The Road Ahead: Can Momentum Overcome Delays?


Despite these setbacks, Nagpur’s transport planners are pressing forward with new ideas to integrate the city and its region.


In October 2025, MahaMetro readied a Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for the next two decades, a blueprint encompassing metro expansions, road networks, bus systems and pedestrian corridors in a unified vision.

This ₹25,000-crore plan, now awaiting state government approval, outlines a Phase III of Nagpur Metro among other projects.


Notably, the proposed Phase III includes the city’s first underground metro segment: an 11.5 km line from Sitabuldi to Koradi, with about 3 km underground near the densely built city core.


If approved and funded, this phase would bring 10 more stations and extend rapid transit to Nagpur’s northern periphery, with an eye on future ridership needs up to 2050.


The CMP also calls for new ring roads and better bus connectivity, aiming to prevent traffic logjams as the metropolitan area grows.


The coming years will test whether Nagpur can implement these plans without repeating the delays that plagued earlier efforts.


There is cautious optimism, buoyed by the fact that Phase II construction is at last in full swing and public support for improved transit remains strong.


However, the experience of the past few years has made it clear that success will depend on streamlining administrative processes.


Timely approvals and accountability for those holding them up could determine if Nagpur’s commuters see projects delivered as promised, or if deadlines continue to slip. As the city and its Vidarbha region look ahead to a smarter, better-connected future, the hope among residents is that the metro’s next chapters will be defined by smoother execution rather than more waiting.


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