RailEnquiry

BANGALORE: The Karnataka government's delay in shifting the Ambedkar statue from the Metro construction site opposite the historical Vidhana Soudha has resulted in the statue sinking by 19mm.An exasperated government issued an order on January 31, asking the public works department (PWD) to enclose the statue in an iron cage and lift it by a crane from the pedestal. The statue will, however, remain where it is."The statue will be at the location and suspended. We have instructions from the state government to undertake this work as the pedestal is sinking due to the heavy excavation work carried out around the statue. We have to pave way for the underground section of Metro near the statue. The department will take up the task of lifting the statue from the pedestal at a cost of Rs 15 lakh,'' PWD officials told TOI.On February 1, the PWD began the process of securing the statue, holding the statue with the help of cranes until the metro work is completed. "The station work may take another six months to complete. But the pedestal will be protected against any further sinking. The statue will lowered down to the pedestal once work is completed,'' BMRCL officials said.The row started when the state government first issued an order on June 4, 2009 to shift three statues in front of Vidhana Soudha—Nehru, Bose and Ambedkar, temporarily inside the Soudha compound until the metro underground construction is over. The order clearly said that the three statues will be put back in the same spots respectively, after the road is re-laid.

The other two statues have been shifted soon after by the PWD but the row kicked off with the Dalit groups. Demanding the statue not to be shifted citing the safety of the statue and questioning if the statue will be placed back at the same spot. Few members from the groups have even said that underground tunneling and station construction can continue even without the statue being removed from the spot with controlled blasting of rocks underneath the surface.

The controversy affected the work for over eight months and state government condoned off the statue, with 25 metres radius within the construction barricades; even deployed a platoon of reserved police to guard metro workers trespassing into the cordoned off area. The time loss has escalated costs by Rs100 crore too.

The first tunnel boring machine already had a breakthrough on December 25 at this site at the other end of the statue and had to be dismantled and reassembled diagonally opposite to the statue to continue the tunneling upto Minsk Square where the underground stretch terminates towards the eastern corridor of the metro alignment. The underground stretch is slated to be operational by mid 2014.