In a first for Tamil Nadu, Chennai Metro Rail becomes ‘green corridor’ to transport lungs for transplantation

For the first time in Tamil Nadu, the Chennai Metro Rail turned into a ‘green corridor’ on Saturday (November 8, 2025) and helped transport a pair of lungs harvested from a deceased donor in Bengaluru to Apollo Hospitals on Greams Road for transplantation. In 21 minutes, the lungs were transported from the Meenambakkam Metro to AG-DMS Metro, covering 10.82 km across seven stations.

Airport sources said a pair of lungs and a heart were brought through air ambulance from Bengaluru, and landed at the airport at 1.52 p.m. Subsequently, a six-member team carried the lungs in a vehicle via the VIP gate (located in Meenambakkam) to the Meenambakkam Metro at 2.04 p.m. and boarded the train at 2.07 p.m. At 2.28 p.m., they reached the AG-DMS Metro and left in an ambulance to Apollo Hospitals. Simultaneously, a “green corridor” from the airport was created on the road, and the heart was transported to MGM Healthcare in an ambulance.

According to officials of the Chennai Metro Rail Limited, they made sure the process was smooth. “The team travelled with the package along with the other passengers. Being a weekend, there were fewer people on the train. We coordinated in both the origin and destination stations,” a staff member said.

In the past, there have been a few instances of the Hyderabad and Bengaluru Metro Rail systems assisting with organ transportation.

In 2021, Hyderabad Metro helped move a heart through a special train from Nagole to Jubilee Hills, crossing a distance of 21 km in less than 30 minutes. This January, it transported a donor heart from LB Nagar’s Kamineni Hospitals to Gleneagles Global Hospital, Lakdikapul, and touched 13 kilometres in 13 minutes.

Seven months later, in August, the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation transported a liver for transplant from Vydehi Hospital in Whitefield to Sparsh Hospital in Rajarajeshwari Nagar, covering 31 km within an hour. Once again in September, BMRC facilitated the shifting of a heart from Yeshwanthpur to South End Circle Metro in 20 minutes.

It is to be noted that in 2023 the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs made an amendment to the Metro Railways (Carriage and Ticket) Rules, 2014. The rule said: “Provided that a person is duly authorised in this behalf by a hospital registered under the Transplantation of Purpose Organs and Tissues Act, 1994, may take along, human organs or tissue or both, for the purpose of organ or tissue transplantation.”