By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter


Almost one-fifth of the more than    100km tunnelling work for the Doha Metro is complete, officials said yesterday.
Qatar Rail expects about 30% of the tunnelling to be over by the end of the year.
Nearly 18.6km of tunnelling has been completed across three routes, namely the Red Line-South (between Mesaieed and Musheireb, total length: 43.64km), the Green Line (Al Rayyan Stadium to Musheireb via Education City, 33.33km) and the Gold Line (between Villaggio Mall and Hamad International Airport via Musheireb, 23.22km).
On these three routes, there will be 37 stations, the works of which are being taken up in the phase 1 of the project.
Contracts worth approximately QR65bn have already been awarded and more are expected in the coming months.
Currently more than 18,500 workers are deployed, excluding the Lusail Light Rail Transit (LLRT) line, at more than 50 sites, including 37 locations where stations are to be built. In the 38km LLRT, which features 37 stations, the tunnelling work is already complete.
About 100 contractors and sub-contractors are working on the project and nearly 70% are local companies or joint ventures comprising Qatar-based construction firms.
More workers are expected to be deployed in the coming months at most sites where works of the stations will be undertaken. The first train is expected to be operated in the second half of 2019.
Yesterday, Qatar Rail authorities took a team of reporters to the site of the Al Sudan Railway station, which would be one of the important links on the Gold line. More than 150m of digging on the route has been done in the area and tunnelling is set to start there.
Project managers told reporters that when the station was completed, it would provide easy access to people travelling to places like Al Sadd Football Stadium, one of the venues of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. There will be a dedicated pedestrian path to the stadium, which is near the station. Tunnelling and digging are being done at nearly 20m underground where the station would be situated.
All the 21 tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) to be deployed for the work are already in the country and 17 of them are being operated at different locations. The other four will be  deployed in a month starting from this week at other sites.
On the nearly 3km distance between Al Sudan and the Villaggio Mall stations, one more station is also being built.
The vast area where works are being carried out in Al Sudan will eventually include many commercial establishments as seen in some of the major metro stations across the world, it was informed.
An agreement has been signed with a major Japanese company to supply the coaches for the metro operations.
Qatar Rail managing director Abdulla Abdulaziz al-Subaie, CEO Saad Ahmed al-Mohanadi and deputy CEO Hamad   Ibrahim al-Bishri briefed reporters on the progress of the metro works, started in July last year.