BMRCL delays payment to rlys for bridge, commuters suffer

BENGALURU: The public travelling daily and who interchange the modes of transport from Metro to Railways and vice-versa are paying the price for Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited’s (BMRCL’s) delay in paying the maintenance fee to the Railways. The payment would ensure that a foot overbridge connecting the Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) Railway Station and the KSR Metro station to facilitate them to interchange transport modes is ready for their convenience.

The payment in question is of `38 lakh, without which the Railways is left with inadequate funds to pay the contractor to complete the works on the foot overbridge. In the process, it is putting commuters — who are daily interchanging modes of transport at this point — through enormous hardship.

The `1.5 crore bridge connecting Platforms 9 and 10 of the railway station with the Metro station is almost ready with only minor finishing works pending.  While it was meant to be declared open by July 2017, the construction has got delayed due to a funding tussle between the Railways and the BMRCL.
Work began only after it was decided that the Railways would construct the bridge for BMRCL, but the latter would pay for it fully. Apart from that, a one-time payment of `38 lakh would be given to Railways as lifetime maintenance fee for the bridge.
Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru Division, RS Saxena, told the City Express: “We are yet to receive the promised maintenance amount. Railways is yet to pay the contractor `20 lakh. He says he does not have the funds to complete the remaining work.”

Saxena stressed that funds allocated to other railway projects cannot be diverted for a project being carried out on behalf of BMRCL.

Senior Divisional Engineer (co-ordination) RK Singh said BMRCL had written to the Railway Board to waive off the maintenance sum.

“We cannot intervene in this. It is up to the Board to take a final decision on it," he said while adding, “We will be in a position to declare the bridge open within two to three weeks of the amount handed over to us.” BMRCL Chief Public Relations Officer U A Vasanth Rao assured that the settlement to Railways would be done soon. "We will sign an MoU with the Railways in this connection and the amount will be remitted shortly," he says.

‘TERRIBLE DURING RAINS’

Passengers who opt to interchange between the two transportation modes continue to suffer each day by struggling to scale up or down the fleet of 66 steps that need to be crossed to reach the railway station. V Ravikumar, a retired government employee, who commutes on and off to Hubballi says,“I am a senior citizen and find it really difficult to walk up the stairs.

It would really benefit people like me when the bridge is ready. I have been hearing since a long time that it would be opened up for the public, but it has not happened.” K Pramod Kalasad, who reaches the KSR Metro station from the Vijayanagar Metro station to take a suburban train to Hoodi for work, says, “It is terrible during rains. The 250-metre walk on the roads between the two stations is enough to drench you.”