Chennai: If going to Chennai Airport from little mount, it would just take less than 15 minutes if you hop onto the metro from Little Mount, inaugurated by chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday in the presence of union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.

Flagging off the Little Mount-Chennai Airport section of the second elevated corridor of Chennai Metro, Jayalalithaa hoped that before the end of the year, the rest of the metro project is also completed and Chennaites get the benefit of quick, safer commute in air-conditioned comfort.

Jayalalithaa flagged for the new service from secretariat via satellite teleconferencing even as union minister for urban development M Venkaiah Naidu flagged it off on the ground at the railway station.

Before flagging off the train, Jayalalithaa said, “like the residents of the city, I look forward to the commencement of operations on the underground section of the Metro Rail which I am confident will be before the end of 2016.” This stretch of metro covers 8.6 km.

Once clearances come from the commissioner of Metro Rail Safety for Alandur-St Thomas Mount here, it would also become operational that would eliminate the need for changing trains to reach Airport.

“With that the entire 20 km elevated section of the Chennai Metro Rail Project, would become operational,” the chief minister said.

The newly commissioned stretch covers six important stations including Airport Station, Meenambakkam Metro Station, Nanganallur Road Station, Alandur Station, Guindy Metro Station and Little Mount Station. It is over 260 trains run in each direction every day, transporting an estimated 60 lakh people each day after the completion of the project.

Tamil Nadu Government is planning to expand the Chennai Metro Rail project along 3 corridors and an orbital corridor at an estimated cost of Rs 44,000 crore.

Union minister Naidu requested the Chennai Metro Rail Limited to expedite the remaining work of phase-I and open for public as soon as possible so that the people of Chennai don’t have to wait more for safe, affordable, reliable, efficient, economical and sustainable metro rail transport.

With today’s inauguration, about 324 kilometres of metro rail will be operational in the country in the cities of Delhi and NCR, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Mumbai.