The new mall in town... at Namma Metro

Bengaluru: Have laundry to be taken care of? Bills to pay? Some groceries and fruits to pick up? Spilled coffee on your shirt and need a quick change to attend a meeting? Need a quick bite or some stationery to buy on the go?  Fret not. You can do all these en route work or to your home at Namma Metro stations.

In a first, the BMRC has reserved 31 retail spaces on five stations - Byappanahhalli, SV Road, Indiranagar, Halasur and Trinity on Reach - 1.

Buoyed by ridership on Namma Metro which has been increasing by over 1,500 footfalls everyday, the rail corporation has finally decided to tap into the real estate space which it had shied away from for over three years.

The Purple Line though complete may not as yet, be running to its full potential as the Green Line is still months away from launch. However, almost full coaches have now prompted the authorities to introduce retail spaces which benefit both the corporation and commuters. Even a bottle of water if one wanted was not available at the stations all these years on Reach one as the corporation didn't want to hand out prime real estate spaces prematurely.

"With the completion of Purple Line, lakhs of Bengaluru's workforce is now dependent on Metro for daily commute. This also brought in demand for retail services. We heard a lot of commuters and after carefully analyzing the needs we decided it was time to leverage real estate in prime locations and roll out the non-fare box revenue plan,” BMRCL spokesperson told Deccan Chronicle.

Along with catering to daily needs, the corporation is earmarking space for start ups and e-commerce companies to become transit oriented destinations.

Sources said that spaces will be given on a three to five year rental basis and reviewed after the term ends. ''Spaces earmarked for the retail outlets will be chosen in a way that it doesn't affect security, commuters' movement or infrastructure needed to run the outlets,'' he said.

This is just the beginning as the corporation is planning to have retail outlets on all stations on Purple Line and later expand it to the Green Line. The tenders for the first 31 spaces have been invited.