BENGALURU: A section of Namma Metro Phase-II will be realigned due to land acquisition issues and the presence of a railway line in the vicinity. The changes will be effected at two stations that figure in the Byappanahalli-Whitefield elevated corridor, which is an extension of Reach-I from MG Road to Byappanahalli.
According to the new proposal, Narayanapura metro station will be knocked off the network and Krishnarajapuram metro station will be shifted by 295 metres. These stations figure in the 15.5-km line from Byappanahalli to Whitefield.
“The plan changes were okayed during a high-powered committee meeting with the chief secretary at Vidhana Soudha,” said a highly-placed source.
“It is very difficult to acquire land in that area. Moreover, the K R Puram railway line runs on one side of the proposed Reach-I extension. It will not be possible to link the entry on this side of the line with other Metro-related infrastructure on the other side by building stairs. Hence, we have decided to remove Narayanapura from our network and slightly shift the K R Puram Metro station to the left,” the source said.
The deadline for acquiring land for Phase-II has been fixed as April 2016.
Phase II Details
Phase II (72.1-km long) is an extension of all the reaches of Phase-I, in addition to two new lines.
It is slated to cost Rs 26,800 crore and is expected to be completed by 2020.
This involves extending the East-West lines of Mysuru Road to Kengeri and Byappanahalli to Whitefield and the two North-South lines from Puttenahalli to Anjanapura and Hessaraghatta Cross to Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre. The two new lines would be from R V Road to Bommasandra (East-West) and from Gottigere to Nagawara (North-South).
This particular extension of Phase II, the longest of all the four extensions, is awaited eagerly as it is slated to provide relief to employees in the IT corridors of Whitefield and Electronics City. The service from Byappanahalli will pass through Jyotipura, Krishnarajapuram, Mahadevapura, Garudacharpalya, Doddenakkundi Industrial Estate, Visveswaraya Industrial Estate, Kundalahalli, Vaidehi Hospital, Satya Sai Hospital, ITPL, Kadugodi Industrial Area and Ujwala Vidyalaya before terminating at Whitefield.
