RailEnquiry

The much-awaited commuter rail system may soon take off in the city as the Department of Urban Land Transport (DULT) is making preparations to issue work orders for the project’s first phase.DULT Commissioner V Manjula said: “We have finished preparing detailed project reports for Phase-I A and have sent them to the Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) for approval. We are expecting the approval in a few days and are likely to issue work orders by the month-end.”The project prepared by RITES provides for running electrified trains between Bangalore City-Mandya and Bangalore City-Bangarpet. In the Bangalore-Mandya route, the trains will stop at Nayandahalli, Jnanabharathi, Kengeri, Hejjala, Bidadi and Ramanagara while on the Bangalore-Bangarpet route, the trains will stop at Cantonment, Bangalore East, Krishnarajapuram, Whitefield, Devanagondhi and Malur.Works enlisted for Phase-I A is likely to cost `174 crore, excluding the cost of acquiring Binny Mills land and construction a terminus there. The RITES had prepared a feasibility report for introducing electrified trains to Tumkur, Mandya, Chikballapur, Bangarpet, Doddaballapur and Hosur from the city under the commuter rail system. According to the estimate, the project is expected to cost `8,759 crore.Earlier, the state government had approached the Railways to implement the project. While they approved it, the Railways refused to fund the project as the commuter rail system implemented by them is running under loss.Later, they agreed to implement the project only if the government provides the necessary funds and seven acres of land belonging to Binny Mills to create infrastructure. The government agreed to fund the project and decided to constitute a special purpose vehicle consisting officials from the state government and Railways to implement it. The CM had recently given his approval for the project.