Metro II: Funding agencies to assess work next week

“We have signed agreements with external funding agencies. We have in-principle approval from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the New Development Bank (NDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank. Their teams will be coming next,” PK Bansal, CMRL managing director, said. He was talking to the media before accompanying the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) KA Manoharan on an inspection of the 9.92-km Washermanpet-DMS section of phase-I on Saturday.

Bansal said the state government had submitted a revised proposal for phase-II to the Centre two weeks ago after updating the comprehensive mobility plan. Though the state had submitted the phase-II proposal to the Centre in 2017, modifications were carried out owing to the change made by the Centre in metro rail policy to include ‘oriented development, value capturing financing and public private partnership model,’ the CMRL managing director said.

Metro had planned to float tenders for the 52-km stretch (Madhavaram to Sholinganallur and Madharavam to CMBT) in June 2019, Bansal said, exuding confidence that the actual physical work on the stretch for which soil investigation, technical design consultancy, and land acquisition was underway, should start this year itself.

He categorically ruled out any reduction in the metro fare after operationalising the entire stretch of phase-I. Bansal, on being asked about commuters complaining about the city having the highest fare in the country, said, “No chance” (of reduction). However, he quickly added that patronage would see a jump after the opening the last 10-km stretch of the first phase. “In Bengaluru, only 50,000 to 60,000 were using metro till they operated for 38 km. After the final 5-km stretch was opened, their patronage jumped to three lakh per day,” he claimed, adding that they were studying the arrival and departure of trains and flights to the city to increase the operating time of metro trains, which could be advanced to 4.30 am and extended up to 12 midnight to woo air and train travellers.

Asked about the phase-I extension from Washermanpet to Wimco Nagar, Bansal said the deadline was set as mid-2022 when the loan agreement was signed with JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) in March 2017, but CMRL intends to finish it a year and nine months in advance, by June 2020.

CMRS Manoharan said they would inspect the safety parameters, passenger amenities and infrastructure at stations for the next two days starting with Central Metro on Saturday before checking the signaling, communication and the performance of the rolling stock on Monday. Pertinently, the CMRL managing director refused to commit on the date of inauguration of metro service on the last stretch and said it would be decided in consultation with senior officers of the state government.

The CMRS, who was bombarded with queries about the repeated glitches in the currently operational metro corridors, said that he had inspected following a call from one of you (journalists), but he found no major problem in the system. However, he did not mind admitting that CMRL had not apprised him of repeated failures or problems in its system.