A. Chellakumar, MP, called on Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday seeking extension of the BMRCL’s Bangalore Metro Rail Project from Bommasandra to Hosur via Attibele. The Chief Minister had agreed to call for a meeting with the Metro rail officials to discuss the project, Dr. Chellakumar told The Hindu.
The MP was accompanied by former Chief Minister and the Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah.
Hosur being an industrial hub with over 3,000 MSMEs and industrial giants setting up manufacturing plants, while being headquartered in Bengaluru, connectivity through a metro rail has become all the more imperative, Mr. Chellakumar said. Viewed as a satellite town of Bengaluru, Hosur is also the preferred housing location for thousands of employees employed in Bengaluru. “Thousands of employees working in Bommasandra industrial area, electronic city and Attibele reside in Hosur for needs of housing and commute daily to their places of work. Similarly, hundreds of Bengaluru residents commute to these manufacturing plants in Hosur on a daily basis.” The inter-State commute between Hosur and Bengaluru is currently dependent on road transport.
The metro rail service is connected up to Electronic city, Bommasandra, while it is only 20 km from Hosur town. It makes sense to have the metro project extended up to Hosur as it would benefit both the States mutually, said Dr. Chellakumar. He further added that if the cost of metro rail is very high, there is an alternative of metro lite with relatively lesser costs.
On what transpired at the meeting, Dr. Chellakumar said, “Mr. Bommai was very responsive, and spoke to the metro officials on phone during the meeting and called for a formal meeting with them.”
Dr. Chellakumar said he had consistently been raising this issue, citing his earlier instance of flagging the demand in Parliament. In a letter dated September 2019, the Minister of State, Hardeep S. Puri had replied to Dr.Chellakumar, stating “Urban transport as part of urban development is a State subject and that the respective State governments are responsible for planning and development of metro rail projects.” The letter was forwarded to the two State governments since.
“Inter-state metro rail is not new, there is metro connectivity from Ghaziabad, Greater Noida of UP and Faridabad, Gurugram of Haryana with Delhi, DMRCL had already paved the way. BMRCL will only benefit from the project,” he said.
