Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Mar 12: It has been 500 days since the day the central government announced its suburban rail project to ease the traffic congestion in the city. But no civil works relating to the project have begun so far.

The central government had announced in its 2019 budget the decision to introduce suburban railway service to Bengaluru. The Railway Board had given its nod for this proposal on October 21, 2020. Karnataka Railway Infrastructure Development Enterprise (K-Ride) was entrusted with the responsibility of executing this project. It was given six years to complete the works.

The concern was also told to complete the plan to link Kempegowda International Airport in three years. But as on March 6, it has been 500 days from the date the plan was announced but no work has begun. Activists for railway project and Citizen for Citizen organisation’s Rajkumar Duggar has said that the expectation that suburban train will become a reality within the prescribed time has been dashed.

He said that traffic problems in the city would have become less if the said project was completed on time. He also stated that more and more passengers would have utilised rail service from and to the airport. So he urged the government to execute the project at the earliest.

K-Ride on its part said that preparations for land acquisition, survey, tender etc are under way and tender has been called for Chikka Banavara-Bayyappanahalli route civil works. Preparations are under way to call tender for some other route and processes have been put through to raise loans from French and Japanese banks. They said that civil works will begin in two months and 20 percent of work has already been completed. They also exuded confidence of being able to complete the project on time.

Health and medical education minister, Dr K Sudhakar, said that he wants to develop Chikkaballapur as a satellite town for Bengaluru and towards this, efforts would be made to extend suburban and metro rail connections to Chikkaballapur. He was speaking at a function organized on June 27 last on the occasion of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Jayanthi.