BENGALURU: The fully completed 3.14-km Madavara-Nagasandra stretch will be thrown open for commercial operations on Thursday, said sources at the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL). The exact timing of the launch will be made public on Wednesday.
A senior BMRCL official said, “The formal launch can take place later. We will most likely start the operations on November 7. We are still finalising the exact time when we can launch it. It will be made public tomorrow.” A source confirmed that BMRCL was readying to throw the line open on Thursday.
The Reach-3 extension line, built at a cost of Rs 298 crore, has three stations Manjunatha Nagar, Chikkabidarakallu and Madavara.
On October 18, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar wrote to Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in connection with the opening of the line. Interestingly, Shivakumar had also sought permission from Khattar to at least permit the state to kickstart regular operations on the line on priority.
The formal launch of the stretch could be done by the Centre later, the letter added. It pointed out that this was done in the past too by BMRCL for small stretches the KR Pura-Baiyappanahalli (2.2 km) and the Kengeri-Challaghatta (2.1 km). They were thrown open to the public on October 9 last year while the inauguration was done on October 20.
The letter also elaborated that the extensions on all three terminal stations of Bengaluru Metro’s Phase-I -- Baiyappanahalli, Mysuru Road and Yelachenahalli -- were completed long ago and only this stretch awaited a launch.
This Reach-3 extension had been given the go-ahead by the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety on October 4, the very next day after the statutory inspection of the line was carried out. The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has been facing much flak for keeping the fully readied line closed for a month now even as vehicular traffic rages daily on the choked Tumakuru Main Road
BMRCL’s existing 73.81-km network has an average daily ridership of 7.5 lakh. “It is projected to have a daily increase ranging between 5,000 and 10,000 commuters only as it has just three stations. The major chunk of commuters will be those heading to the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (Madavara),” an official said.