Chickpet Metro tunnel almost complete

Bengaluru: Metro Rail is about reach another milestone as the tunnel boring machine, Kaveri, which had started work from City Market, is all set to come out from Chickpet in another seven to 10 days, connecting the missing link in the underground 1 in the North-South Corridor.

The other TBM, Margarita, has started work from Majestic to Sampige Road, and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd is working towards completing the underground line in the north-south corridor in six months.

Tunneling from City Market to Chickpet was a major challenge for BMRCL as it is one of the most densely populated areas. The TBM had to go under hotels, shops, the railway station and residential buildings. Also, the rocky terrain made drilling difficult.

BMRCL Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola told Deccan Chronicle, “It is a densely populated area and was one of the major hurdles in the corridor. While Kaveri will come out in Chickpet in the next few days, another TBM Krishna is just 150 metres behind Kaveri.”

The BMRCL is using four TBMs – Krishna, Kaveri, Margarita and Godavari. Recently, Godavari, which is drilling from Sampige Road to Majestic, hit a hard rock and has been severely damaged. “The machine is still stuck in between.

Our engineers are repairing it and it will start functioning soon. In six months, we will finish tunneling from Chickpet to Majestic and from Majestic to Sampige Road. Eventually, the east-west corridor will also become functional,” Mr Kharola said.

The underground line of the North-South corridor, between Sampige Road and National College, cuts through Kempegowda (Majestic) interlinking station and proceeds towards Chikpet and K.R. Market stations.

The total length of underground portion on North-South corridor (from Sampige Road till National College) is approximately 3.67 km and includes approximately 2.521 km of twin tunnels, 495 m of ramps, 240 m of cut and cover tunnel and two underground stations.