The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Moily calls for speeding up of Metro work

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 26, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Moily calls for speeding up of Metro work

Special Correspondent

M. Veerappa Moily

BANGALORE: Chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission M. Veerappa Moily has urged Governor Rameshwar Thakur to take steps to speed up work on the Metro Rail project in the city.

In a letter to Mr. Thakur here on Tuesday, Mr. Moily said the work was not progressing at the speed it should have and if steps were not taken to hasten it, cost and time overruns could pose problems.

Land acquisition

He said that land acquisition at many places on the proposed route had not been done, and the political leadership in the previous government had scuttled the acquisition process.

Mr. Moily said that because of this, work at various places had not begun and at Mahatma Gandhi Road between Anil Kumble Circle to Brigade Road-Kamaraj Road the work had been moving at a snail’s pace.

At Byappanahalli, the BMRCL was construct the Metro depot in 60 acres, but due to legal problem that land was not available for it.

Mr. Moily said in the north-south line depot, 100 acres had been given to the Indian Air Force (IAF) at Peenya without consulting the BMRCL.

Approval had also been given to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to construct an elevated road between Yeshwantpur and Peenya on National Highway 4 and because of this it would not be possible to take the Metro on NH 4 median and the cost of the alternative alignment would be prohibitively very high. The corporation limits had now been extended beyond Peenya and the NHAI should be prohibited from taking up any highway programme inside the corporation limits. Instead, the government should facilitate the metro corridor to come up on the median.

Delay

Mr. Moily said the Metro project was showing all signs of delay owing to lack of technical personnel.

The Ministry of Railways had refused to spare its engineers on deputation.

The Governor should request the Railways to depute its engineers for the BMRCL project and also give powers to the managing director of the BMRCL to recruit engineers for the project.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had initially assisted the BMRCL, but due to the non-cooperation of the previous government the BMRCL had lost the DMRC technical support.

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, the Bangalore Development Authority, the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited and the Bangalore Electric Supply Company should cooperate with the BMRCL on a day-to-day basis.

The steering committee under the Chief Secretary should be activated to address the issues arising out of the project execution, regularly.

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