BENGALURU: Bengaluru Metro’s Phase-II project’s land acquisition cost has gone up by Rs 438.26 crore. Widening of roads, addition of a depot and a station and service roads have forced Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) to acquire an additional 44 hectares of land, jacking up the cost.
The overall cost of the 72-km network was revised to Rs 30,695 crore in 2021 from the original Rs 26,405 crore.
“The land acquisition cost has been revised to Rs 6,293.16 crore. We have acquired 128.36 hectares of land as against the proposed 84.33 hectares,” a senior BMRCL official told TNIE.
Several reasons contributed to the increase in the land required for the project, he said. “As per the Detailed Project Report (DPR), Reach-2 extension on the West was to end at Kengeri station. However, one more station (Challaghatta) was added,” he said.
Only one depot was proposed for East-West extension on 12 hectares of land. However, 18.93 hectares of land was acquired for it. “One more depot on the eastern side of the East-West extension has been proposed at Kadugodi (Whitefield) for which 18.11 hectares of forest land has been acquired,” he said. The DPR did not consider the land required for widening the road on two of its reaches - Reach 1E extension (Baiyappanahalli to Kadugodi) and Reach 4 extension (Yelachenahali to Silk Institute). “The road between KR Pura and Garudacharpalya stations was only 2+2 lane. It was decided to widen the road so that this 2+2 lane would still be maintained even during construction work,” the official said.
The road was widened on Reach-4 extension and elevated portion of Reach-6 (Kalena Agrahara to Nagawara), he added. Again, in the case of Reach-5 line, the DPR had made provision for 5,147 square metres of land for a viaduct and 87,410 sqm for stations. However, BMRCL had to acquire 79,620 sqm of land, he pointed out.
“Most part of the land acquired will go for a new service road from Central Silk Board to Bommasandra as the viaduct is located on the existing service road of the national highway. In all, 14.13 hectares of land has been acquired for a depot as against the original plan for 12 hectares, the official said.