Pune Metro Line 3 Opened on 3 November 2026: A 23.2 km Elevated Line From Hinjewadi to Shivajinagar, Driven by Women Train Operators and Built as a Public-Private Partnership

Pune Metro Line 3, the Pink Line, opened to passengers at 6 am on Wednesday 4 November 2026. The 23.2 km elevated line links Maan in the Hinjewadi IT hub with the District Court station at Shivajinagar, and women drive its trains: Mid-day counts around 90 of them, while The Indian Express and Construction World say around 100. The Prime Minister inaugurated it by video link on Tuesday 3 November, and the Prime Minister’s Office puts the whole Pune Metro package at around ₹21,800 crore (about ₹218 billion).

The line and its first morning

The corridor is fully elevated and has 23 stations, running through Wakad, Balewadi, Aundh and Savitribai Phule Pune University before reaching District Court. The Indian Express gives its cost, including land and moving utilities, as ₹8,313 crore. The Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Hinjewadi, where lakhs of IT workers commute, sits on the western end, and the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) estimates 2 to 2.5 lakh daily riders.

Seventeen of the 23 stations opened on 4 November. According to the Free Press Journal, those are stations one to 12 plus 17, 18, 19, 21 and 23, so trains pass the six that are not ready, as they do on Pune’s first two lines. Trains ran every six minutes at peak and every 12 minutes otherwise, from 6 am to a last departure of 10.30 pm from Maan and 11.40 pm from Shivajinagar. At District Court the line meets the existing Purple and Aqua lines, which Maha-Metro runs, and the Indian Express reports that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra said one common ticketing app would serve both.

Women at the controls

The Prime Minister’s Office statement, as quoted by ETV Bharat, called the all-women operation a first-of-its-kind initiative, and The Indian Express describes it as a first in the country. The operator is the French firm Keolis, which won a 10-year contract to run and maintain the line’s 22 trains, 23 stations and ticketing system. Construction World reported in 2025 that the line’s operating company, Pune IT City Metro Rail Limited, said about 100 women would be recruited and trained as train pilots.

The Bridge Chronicle reported in June 2026 that most of the 100 women selected are engineering graduates who completed six months of training, including practical driving. Mid-day adds that women make up 50 per cent of the administrative and station workforce. The counts differ by outlet: Mid-day says around 90 operate trains, the others around 100.

A metro built as a public-private partnership

Pune’s first two lines, the Purple and Aqua lines, were built by the state-owned Maha-Metro. The Pink Line was built differently. Open reports that PMRDA awarded the concession in October 2018 to a joint venture of Tata Realty and Siemens, which formed Pune IT City Metro Rail Limited to build, finance, operate and eventually hand the line back to the government. Elets gives the same October 2018 date and a 35-year concession term. Open calls it the first metro implemented as a public-private partnership under the Centre’s New Metro Rail Policy of 2017, and the Chief Minister said the same at the opening, according to The Indian Express.

Siemens says it delivered the signalling, the electrification, the communications systems and the depot equipment, with 10 years of maintenance for signalling and power. Its statement describes a semi-automated system (Grade of Automation 2) that can later be upgraded to fully driverless running, and a 750-volt DC third-rail power supply. The Free Press Journal quotes PMRDA’s commissioner calling the third rail the first such system in Maharashtra. Siemens says the line roughly halves the travel time between Hinjewadi and Shivajinagar.

About 30 per cent of the line’s electricity is meant to come from solar power. The Construction World report puts solar capacity at 7.6 MW, and ETV Bharat splits it into 6.10 MW at stations and 1.50 MW at the depot.

What riders found on day one

PITCMRL reported around 50,000 passenger movements on 4 November, according to the Free Press Journal, with District Court the busiest station at about 25,000. PuneNow carried the same figure and noted that it came during the Diwali holidays, when many offices are shut. PITCMRL’s chief executive told reporters the response had been overwhelming, and the company plans to run trains every five minutes at peak and every eight minutes off-peak as more passengers return. Swarajya gives the end-to-end journey as 45 minutes; PuneNow gives about 40.

Fares run from ₹12 to ₹62 by distance, per Swarajya and ETV Bharat. ETV Bharat adds that some IT employees found them nearly twice as high as on the first Pune Metro lines. The National Common Mobility Card is accepted, according to the Free Press Journal.

The Phase II package

The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of Pune Metro Phase II, which Telangana Today and Open both put at about ₹13,500 crore. Open lists four corridors: Lines 2A and 2B (together about 12.75 km, from Vanaz to Chandani Chowk and from Ramwadi to Vitthalwadi), Line 4 (about 25.52 km from Kharadi to Khadakwasla) and Line 4A (6.12 km from Nal Stop to Manik Baug). They will reach Kharadi, Magarpatta, Hadapsar, Swargate, Nanded City, Pune Cantonment and Warje, with interchanges at Swargate, Nal Stop and Kharadi Bypass. Open reports that Maha-Metro will build them over about four and a half years.

For comparison with other cities, tuput’s explainer on India’s metro networks gives the national counts, Chennai’s Phase II stretch opened on 11 October, and the Delhi Metro’s opening in 2002 shows where the national story began.

What is still to come

The Indian Express reports that two of the six closed stations should open by the end of November 2026 and the other four, with their escalators, in phases by January 2027. At seven open stations only one staircase worked at first. Open notes that the line was scheduled for March 2025 and opens about a year and a half after that date. ETV Bharat reported that rainwater had leaked into some stations before the inauguration, and that commuters will need feeder buses and other last-mile transport to reach offices inside the IT park. As of 5 November 2026, PITCMRL’s first-day figure is the only ridership number published.