Underground tunnelling work on the East-West and North-South Corridors of Bangalore Metro is expected to finish by December next year, according to Metro officials.
Currently, tunnelling work is going on between Mantri Mall in Malleswaram and Majestic and tunnelling under the railway lines between Majestic and City Railway Station is expected to start early next month.
According to BMRCL, the overall progress on the East-West corridor is 85 per cent and a tunnel length of 4,666 meters has been completed out of the targeted 5,130 meters. The North-South corridor is 39 per cent complete and the tunnel length completed is 1,050 meters out of 5,062 meters.
BMRCL has also decided to rename the Cricket Stadium Station as Cubbon Park Station and the Central College Station as M Visvesvaraya Station. The City Market station will be renamed as KR Market station, a statement from BMRCL said.
Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy had said that the National College Metro corridor would be completed by March 2014 and services between Byappanahalli and Mysore Road would be run by 2014. Phase 1 is due to be completed by March 2015.
‘High Speed Rail Link Project Not Feasible’
Bangalore: The Rs 6,689 crore High Speed Rail Link (HSRL) project to connect the city with Bangalore International Airport is likely to be put on the back burner as various politicians are in favour of extending the Bangalore Metro to the airport instead.
On Friday, during a tour of Metro underground work at the south ramp on the North-South underground section, senior BJP leader and MP H N Ananthkumar said that the HSRL was not a feasible project. “Everyone who travels to the airport will have to come to Minsk Square and switch over to the HSRL. It will be a very costly project. Instead, a Metro link to BIAL is more feasible. The airport has already crossed the 11.2 million footfall mark against the 9.2 million we had estimated back in 1999,” he said.
The view was mirrored by Congress leader and Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao who said that HSRL was not a feasible option. Bangalore in-charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy said that a link to the airport was part of Metro’s Phase 3 plan.
Commenting on the progress of the Metro work in the city, Ramalinga Reddy announced that Reach 3 and 3A between Malleswaram and Peenya would be opened by December this year and by April 2014, the Peenya - Hessarghatta section would be open for operations as well.