BENGALURU: After tunnelling through 718 metres for 100 days from Lakkasandra Metro station, Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) Rudra had its final breakthrough on Thursday at 10.45 am. With this, seven out of nine TBMs of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), which are tunnelling to create an underground corridor in the Pink Line, have completed their job.
It also marks the completion of 87% of the tunnelling work for the 13.89-km UG corridor between Dairy Circle and Nagawara in the Reach-6 line between Kalena Agrahara and Nagawara. The remainder is expected to be over by March 2024, said a senior Metro official.
Rudra commenced its third and final leg of tunnelling on July 14 from Lakkasandra station. In its previous legs, it had completed 613.2 metres between South Ramp and Dairy Circle stations and before that 746.2 metres between Dairy Circle and Lakkasandra stations, according to an official release. With Rudra achieving its task, contractor Afcons Infra has completed its tunnelling job for BMRCL.
Rudra had encountered an unprecedented challenge of a huge garbage hill with waste dating back to nearly 40 years and out-of-the-box solutions had to be created by Afcons to overcome the issue.
At present, only the Tunga and Bhadra TBMs are tunnelling to complete a stretch of 2.125 km (2125 metres) between Venkateshpura and Nagawara stations.
"As of now, they are still tunnelling from Venkateshpura towards K G Halli. After they reach there, they will be pulled from the South end to the North end using jacks and other heavy equipment and tunnelling will commence from K G Halli to Nagawara. It is likely to be completed by March 2024, thereby ending the tunnelling work for Metro Phase-II," said another senior official.
The deadline fixed earlier for the launch of the Pink Line is December 2024.