The Tamil Nadu government has raised concerns over what it calls an “uneven application” of the Centre’s Metro Rail Policy, after the Union government rejected Metro proposals for Madurai and Coimbatore, citing a population threshold of 20 lakh.

While the Union government maintains that the 2017 policy restricts Metro systems to larger cities, Tamil Nadu officials questioned why similarly sized or smaller cities in other states secured approvals.

Government sources noted that although Coimbatore’s Municipal Corporation population was only 15.84 lakh as per the 2011 Census, its larger planning area crossed 23.5 lakh.

Madurai’s core city population stood at 10.20 lakh, and its urban agglomeration reached 14.7 lakh—still below the benchmark.

Tamil Nadu officials argued that the Centre had

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