BENGALURU: With Chief Minister Siddaramaiah having a series of meetings on Wednesday, the meeting with Metro officials at Vidhana Soudha was called off.
“The meet was called by the CM to discuss Metro connectivity to the airport and review the progress of Phase-I and Phase-II of Namma Metro,” said a government source.
The CM had made an announcement on Independence Day that connectivity to the Kempegowda International Airport will be established by extending the new 21.25-km Metro line proposed between Gottigere and Nagawara (under Phase-II). But officials says this link can neither be considered a part of Phase-II, which had a deadline of December 2020, or a part of Phase-III, the alignment for which has not yet been finalised.
Pradeep Singh Kharola, Managing Director, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, said, “Let us decide upon the nomenclature later. Phase-II has been completely finalised upon and the project cost fixed at `26,800 crore.” The link to airport can be considered as a separate route, he added.
According to sources, the alignment is likely to be from Nagawara to KIA via the National Highway through Hebbal and Yelahanka, one of the proposals given by engineering consultancy firm RITES, in 2015. The other alternative it had proposed was from Nagawara to airport via Thanisandra and Begur. RITES had narrowed down the options to these two from the five routes proposed initially.
“The distance is around 30km between Nagawara and the airport. Since it is an elevated line, the cost we incur per kilometre comes to about `220 crore,” said U A Vasant Rao, General Manager (Finance), BMRCL. Metro did not anticipate any land acquisition issues on this stretch.
When asked about the status, BMRCL Land Acquisitions Manager M S Channappa Goudar said the engineering department needs to first conduct a topography survey and identify the properties that need to be acquired. “Once the final plan comes to the Land Acquisition department, it could take between one and two years to pay the compensation and acquire land.”
Kharola refused to give a deadline on when the project is likely to start. “There is a lot of planning to be done and so many details are yet to be worked out. I cannot give any specifics. All I can say is that Metro is readying a project report for the K R Puram to Silk Board stretch,” he said.