Bengaluru: With the inspection of the underground section of the Metro Rail’s east-west corridor now complete, the stretch could be thrown open for commercial operations before the month end, according to BMRCL officials.
Although the Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety (CMRS) has directed the BMRCL to attend to a few civil works in the interest of passenger safety, this is unlikely to hold up operations, they say.
BMRCL spokesman, Vasanth Rao, when contacted, said the civil work could take just 10 or 15 days to complete. “The CMRS has asked us to make some small changes. It is important to meet all the safety parameters before we open the stretch for public use,” he added.
Meanwhile, the BMTC has begun working on providing feeder services to all stations to help commuters reach them. The work on the underground section has been completed at a cost of Rs 370 crore per kilometer.
It has five stations, Cubbon Park, Vidhana Soudha, Sir M Visvesvaraya (near Central College), Kempegowda Intersection at Majestic, and City Railway. The work on the underground tunneling began in June 2011 and the stretch was initially scheduled to be opened to the public by December 2015.
The date was later pushed to January this year and now it appears it will be ready for commercial operations only by later this month. The entire Phase 1 of the Metro is expected to be fully operational by December this year.
