After several missed deadlines, the wait for the fully operational Metro Phase-I is nearing its end. The city’s moment of joy is just five months away. By mid-June, Namma Metro’s Phase-I should be fully operational. Of the 42-km east-west and north-south corridors, 27 km is already functional. Work on the remainder is 96% complete.
It is now time to expect dividends from Namma Metro, the major infrastructure project that claimed more than eight years to burrow through the city’s core and etch out of the surface towards the four extremities. However the Metro’s birth pangs are not over yet. The Metro brought in its wake uprooted utilities, cracked houses, barricaded roads, heaps of steel and shutterings, noise and dust. But it is now time to expect the harvest of relief.
The saga of much that the city underwent during these eight years may soon be forgotten as the city folk would happily ride the Metro underneath the crowded thoroughfares of the city.
But laying the tunnels or the elevated track was certainly no easy tasks. Loans were, of course, soft. But the earth’s crust was hard to crack and once cracked, difficult to be bored.
Formidable task“Laying infrastructure for an upcoming city is easy, but never so for a living city”, remarks BMRCL chief Pradeep Singh Kharola. “Digging tunnel underneath a city and beneath congested localities is a formidable challenge. We have been using giant cutting machines and explosives. It is not like building a dam in the hills or forests. Rigours of working below the city’s core need to be seen to be believed,” he adds.
According to Kharola, 1,500 workers under 10 big contractors are working round-the-clock to finish the Metro intersection at Majestic, the crucial link that would render the entire Phase I fully operational.
Reeling out statistics, Kharola says the masonry for the intersection amounts to one lakh cubic metre of concrete.
The station will be topped by a dome of 90 metres diameter. The intersection sprawls over a 300 by 300 metre area 80 ft. deep into the ground. The lowest point a passenger would get to would be equivalent to a seven-storey below the surface. The north-south line is at a depth of 25 metres while the east-west line passes at a depth of 16 metres.
30 escalatorsThe Majestic station (it is yet to be named), would be studded with 30 escalators (of which 20 have been installed), and would have 45 staircases.
The infrastructure is expected to be good enough for the next 50 years and can handle a maximum of 20,000 passengers at a time (although not more than 10,000 are expected to be there if four trains arrive at a time).
The ventilators have the capacity to pump fresh air for the maximum load of passengers.
The east-west line has posed major challenges as the boring machine, Godavari’s progress is greatly hindered by hard rock under Chikpet where just around 150 metres of tunnel remains to be cut for the machine to emerge at Majestic, thereby completing one of the two tunnels on the section. Kharola expects this to happen by mid-March.
Rocky terrainThe challenges faced at the final approach to Majestic under Chikpet area are described to be claustrophobic. Geologists from the Department of Mines and Geology have described the terrain as ‘fractured rocks’.
Kharola says cutters have been wearing out too frequently and need to be changed. He says time to prepare the machine for cutting claims more time than actually consumed in cutting. At one stage the fronthead of the machine bearing the cutters cracked and had to be removed by drilling a well and lifting it out by summoning a crane.
Mercifully an Italian company could supply the head in record time without much loss of time. Kharola says any such accident is fraught with risk of the tunnels being flooded, an eventuality averted by deploying heavy duty ventilators that keep away water.
The Metro trains and the track are being subjected to the most rigorous trials. The BMRCL authorities recently ran the train with ‘measuring wheel’, a test conducted by Swedish experts covering wheels with multiple sensors to ensure highest standards of safety. The results are expected within a fortnight. Fire Services too have conducted their tests for clearance.
Phase-II: steady progressThe work on Phase-II of Namma Metro has been progressing steadily. Phase-II would extend the Metro from Mysore Road to Kengeri (6.645 km) in the western side and from Baiyappanahalli to Whitefield in the eastern suburbs (15.5 km).
The BMRCL has completed the land acquisition and demolished 50 structures for the purpose towards the Kengeri side. Kharola does not expect much hassles as these lines do not require any interchange and will be elevated. He foresees trains beginning to operate from Kengeri in three years’ time from now.
Similarly, on the eastern side of Phase-II, 57 buildings on the acquired land have been removed and Rs. 107 crore paid by way of compensation.
RidershipThe Metro has begun casting its pull over the city folk. Kharola says the Nagasandra-Peenya section (Reach 3B) is already logging a daily ridership of 30,000 to 40,000 commuters. He expects it to rise to one lakh a day as soon as the Majestic intersection is commissioned and to four lakh when Phase-I is fully functional. However, he foresees the possibility of Namma Metro even handling a maximum one million passengers a day.
The difference the Metro can make to city commuting can be gauged from the fact that commuting by Metro from Srirampuram to Majestic would take just a minute. Currently it takes 25 minutes to commute by surface transport.
FinancesThe Phase-II envisages an expenditure of Rs. 26,000 crore. Half of it i.e., Rs. 13,000 crore will come from borrowings. The HUDCO will be lending Rs. 600 crore while Rs. 1,000 crore is expected to come by way of floating bonds. Besides, the BMRCL proposes to opt for domestic borrowing as interest rates have been falling constantly.
(The author can be reached at maqsiraj@gmail.com)
