Title - Bangalore suburban Rail Project gets okay

Finally, the state government has given the green signal to Phase 1(a) of the long-pending Commuter Rail Project to connect the suburban areas to the City Central Station.

A special purpose vehicle (SPV), likely to be called Bangalore Suburban Rail Corporation, will be set up for the purpose. Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) has been authorised to prepare a detailed project report for Phase 1(a).  K Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, Bangalore Division of South Western Railway (SWR), said the project might take at least two years to take off, considering land acquisition, funds and the process duration.

“There is a lot of demand from the public. Not only will the project be beneficial to Bangalore, it will also take pressure off the SWR,” he said. RITES had earlier conducted a feasibility study for the project and submitted the report to Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT).

The DULT officials said it would take at least five months for RITES to submit the DPR.  While preparing the DPR, RITES will conduct surveys along identified routes and give detailed plans for project implementation.

According to the feasibility study done by RITES in 2012, Phase 1(a) of the project will have trains from Bangalore to Bangarpet, Tumkur and Mandya.

The report said Phase 1(a) included activities for  Commuter Rail System that can be completed immediately such as procurement of 5 MEMU rakes, making City Railway Station - Cantonment line into twin single line system and setting up automatic signalling on Cantonment to Byappanahalli line, developing four pit lines at Byappanahalli and two additional pit lines at Yeswantpur.

Twenty four services can be run with these facilities, generating 4 lakh commuter trips at the end of Phase 1(a), it said. The estimated investment for this work is `173 crore. Earlier, Infrastructure Development Department Secretary Dr Rajkumar Khatri said the chief secretary had suggested inclusion of officials of Urban Development Department, Railways, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, RITES and other departments in the SPV.

Khatri said the state was banking on the Centre and the Railways for the funds. Meanwhile, Transport Minister R Ashok said he was not aware of the developments. “I did not attend the second half of the Cabinet meeting as I was not feeling well. I don’t know about the decision on the project,” he said.