Bengaluru, India (Metro Rail Today): The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) today opened a much-awaited 7.5 km extension line from Mysuru Road to Kengeri. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri have flagged off the movement of the first train at Nayandahalli for Kengeri Metro Station. The services for the public will be commenced from Monday i.e. August 30, 2021.
This extended line will cover a total of 7.53 km with six stations at Nayandahalli, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Jnanabharathi, Pattengere, Kengeri Bus Terminal, and Kengeri on the Purple line.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Bommai said, “This stretch inaugurated today is one of the main arms of Namma Metro since the area is densely populated and the metro will help the people here to transit comfortably. Metro is not only the lifeline of Bengaluru city, it should be the future line of the city.”
Bommai said that he has taken the decision to personally supervise the progress of all mega projects in Bengaluru. “In the next 20 days a dashboard on Bengaluru city’s various projects will be ready in my office and day-to-day updates will be there and I will dedicate my first working hour of the day for supervising the progress of these mega projects in Bengaluru.”
“Journey of Bengaluru metro started with the sanction of phase one in 2006 which is 42.3 km with an approved revised cost of Rs 13, 845 crores. The first section of 7 km of phase one was commenced in October 2011 and daily passenger boarding of about 12, 500 per km of the phase one pre-Covid-19 is comparable to the busiest metro network in the country next to Mumbai and Delhi,” said Hardeep Singh Puri speaking at the inauguration event.
“The ridership was increasing steadily since the full commissioning in June 2016 with the highest ridership of 6.1 lakh passengers boarding in October 2019. Bengaluru metro has one of the highest punctuality rates 99.8 per cent," Puri said.
“Today 27 cites in the country are on metro Regional Rapid Transit System(RRTS) Map with the metro system either operational or under construction and I’m happy with this 7.5 km today inaugurated Bengaluru metro line, we will have 730 km of metro line operational in 18 different cities and more than 1,055 km of metro rail or RRTS projects are under construction in various cities,” Puri informed.
Operations on this stretch were initially scheduled to begin in 2020 and then pushed to June as officials cited Covid second wave and unavailability of workers due to the pandemic among reasons for the delay.
The stretch is elevated and is part of the currently operational 18.1 km East-West Corridor (Purple Line). With this extension, the East-West Corridor has become 25.6 km long with 23 Stations. The construction of this section was started in February 2016.
Each station is provided with eight escalators and four elevators and one Station namely Kengeri Bus Terminal has six escalators and six elevators.
All six stations of this extension line are going to have rooftop solar power with a total of 1.5 MW capacities. “The installation of the solar power plants is targeted for completion by March 2022. Energy-efficient LED lights have been provided at all six stations. All the stations are provided with entry/exits opening on the newly provided service road. Bus bays, Pickup and Drop area for Taxi and Autos are all earmarked in the service roads,” BMRCL said.
A further extension of the 2 km section from Kengeri to Challaghatta is scheduled for completion by March 2022. On commissioning of this section, Bengaluru will have 56 km of Metro Rail network with 51 Stations.
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