Karnataka’s cupboard on Thursday accepted the revised price of Bengaluru Metro’s section 2 venture, for which the central authorities had initially accepted a funds of Rs 26,405 crore. Nevertheless, the fee has elevated by Rs 14,019 crore to Rs 40,425 crore.
The state authorities attributes the fee escalation to elevated land acquisition prices, which it says have jumped from 30 per cent to 100 per cent of the land’s steering worth. Moreover, the price of civil work has elevated by Rs 4,408 crore. It additionally highlighted that the size of the metro line extending from 72.09 km to 75.06 km additionally contributed to price escalation.
Consequently, to cowl the web price enhance of Rs 14,019 crore, extra monetary help of Rs 9,729 crore has been accepted by the cupboard, which has additionally determined that the extra fund will likely be shared among the many central and state governments and Bengaluru Metro Rail Company Restricted (BMRCL).
The cupboard has additionally determined to submit a proposal to the Centre for the revised venture price of Rs 40,425 crore.
Nevertheless, as per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Centre, the state and BMRCL over the metro venture, most of those price escalations (eg, land acquisition, civil work, and scope change attributable to line extension) fall underneath “different price escalation”, are to be completely borne by the Karnataka authorities, and are usually not associated to central statutory duties/levies or trade charge variations.
Bengaluru Metro’s section 2 venture consists of extensions of the purple line (Mysore Street to Kengeri and Baiyappanahalli to Whitefield) and inexperienced line (Nagasandra to Madavara and Yelachenahalli to Silk Institute), plus new yellow and pink traces. As of Could, the inexperienced line has been prolonged to Madavara (3.14 km). It has been operational since November 2024. The yellow line (RV Street to Bommasandra, 18.82 km) is going through delays as a result of unavailability of rolling inventory, pushing the operations to June 2025.
The pink line (Kalena Agrahara to Nagawara, 21.26 km) is delayed to December 2025 or early 2026 due to land acquisition and tunnelling points. Section 2A (KR Puram to Central Silk Board) and Section 2B (KR Puram to Kempegowda Worldwide Airport), that are being undertaken at sluggish paces, are focused for late 2026.
Story continues under this advert
Satya Arikutharam, an city mobility knowledgeable, stated BMRCL sought the state authorities’s approval for this virtually a yr in the past. “The state authorities is prone to bear a significant portion of the fee escalation, in accordance with the tripartite MoU. Given the scope change (double-decker construction), land acquisition price escalation (state authorities duty), development delays (tough tunnelling situations not foreseen), and delay in rolling inventory procurement, the majority of the fee escalation will turn into the state authorities duty,” he added.
© The Indian Categorical Pvt Ltd