Bengaluru Suburban rail: SWR gives 115 acres for Corridor 4, promises to okay airport line alignment

Bengaluru: The South Western Railway (SWR) has finally given 115 acres of land for the Bengaluru Suburban Railway Project's 46.88-km line that will connect Heelalige in the far south to Rajanukunte in the far north. 

The SWR handed over 115.472 acres of its land to Railway Infrastructure Development Company Limited (K-RIDE) under a long-term lease. However, it reduced the land for Corridor 2 from 157.07 acres to 85.707 acres. Both agreements were signed on April 2, a senior official in K-RIDE said. 

Yogesh Mohan, Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru, confirmed the development to DH, saying the land registration formalities have been completed. 

K-RIDE, a special-purpose vehicle for constructing the 149-km BSRP, gave L&T Limited the contract to design and build viaducts for Corridor 4 (Kanaka Line) on December 30, 2023. However, it couldn't issue the Notice To Proceed (NTP) because of the delay in alignment approval and land agreement with the railways. Without the NTP, the contractor couldn't start the groundwork. 

Both hurdles have been cleared now and groundwork has begun. The SWR approved the revised alignment plan for Corridor 4 in January. K-RIDE is also working to shift utilities, clear other physical hurdles and acquire private land for Corridor 4, another senior official said. 

Corridor 4 will have 19 stations and is to be completed by December 2026, an ambitious deadline given the slow pace of work. 

Meanwhile, K-RIDE has submitted a revised alignment of Corridor 1 (KSR Bengaluru-Devanahalli/Airport, 41.4 km) to the SWR's Bengaluru division. 

Mohan, the Bengaluru DRM, said they had sought more details about the alignment of Corridor 1 and that K-RIDE had submitted them. "The alignment is under approval. We are looking into it," he said. 

In February, Minister for Infrastructure Development MB Patil set a December 2027 deadline for Corridor 1 and stated that it had been split into two phases for better execution.

In the first phase, the Yelahanka-Devanahalli section will be completed by December 2026, while the KSR Bengaluru-Yelahanka section will be ready by December 2027, he had said. 

The Rs 15,767-crore project has struggled to take off even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a 40-month deadline for its completion in June 2022. Civil work contracts have been awarded for only two of the four corridors. 

A well-placed source contended that K-RIDE faced technical challenges in executing a project of this scale. A big stumbling block has been the "poor coordination" between K-RIDE and the railways. 

Corridor 1, which will provide airport connectivity to the city's core areas, is a case in point. "K-RIDE doesn't think it's that important," the source said. 

Mohan acknowledged the challenges and said they were working to address them. He also said that the railways was ready to take over the project.