BENGALURU: The Cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to the much-awaited Metro’s Outer Ring Road line. It will improve the economic efficiency of the city by offering an enormous boost to the IT sector, said top Metro officials.
The Rs 4,200 crore elevated line running into 17 km, will connect KR Puram and Silk Board Junction along the Outer Ring Road (Phase-2A). It will have two interchanges at KR Puram and Silk Board. It will also connect Reach-1 (Baiyappanahalli to MG Road) and Reach 5 (RV Road and Bommasandra).
It will be the first Metro project in the last seven years that will resort to Innovative Financing.
Additional Chief Secretary Mahendra Jain told Express that the line would facilitate connecting two vital parts of the city, Whitefield with Electronics City, through the Silk Board intersection and other Metro lines. Phase-2A is set to be commissioned along with Phase-II in 2020.
“A commuter boarding a train at Electronics City can alight at Silk Board Junction. A connecting Metro line from here can be taken to KR Puram. From that point, one can reach Whitefield by boarding a connecting Metro line from Baiyappanahalli to Whitefield.”
“Within a span of four months, the idea was conceived, the Detailed Project Report readied and the funding pattern also put in place. Now even the Cabinet approval has been obtained. In three years, the line will be in place, making it the fastest among all Metro projects to be implemented, he said.
The government order is awaited before the project gets started. “Tenders for civil works will be issued by BMRCL within three months,” Jain said. Elaborating on the funding pattern, Pradeep Singh Kharola, Managing Director of BMRCL, said that presently Rs 1,100 crore is expected to be raised through innovative financing. “Under this funding pattern, BMRCL will offer naming rights, advertising rights, retail space and aerobridge connectivity to interested establishments for a period of 30 years,” he said.
“The funding through this mode of financing could even touch Rs 2,000 crore depending on the response from corporates,” he added. The state government and BMRCL will fund Rs 500 crore each while Rs 2,100 crore will be mobilised through borrowings, Kharola said.
“The economic efficiency of the city is bound to improve when commuters along this congested stretch will cover their journey within an hour instead of three to four hours now. There will be more time at everyone’s disposal.”
Presently, 4.5 lakh commuters use this stretch, according to an analytical study released earlier.
The DPR said employees lose around Rs 20,713 crore annually due to the 90 minutes lost each day owing to traffic snarls.