Work at Chikkabidarakallu Metro station resumes months after BMRCL agrees to build roads to villages

BENGALURU: After a gap of five months, work has resumed recently at the Chikkabidarakallu (previously Jindal Nagar) Metro station, an extension of the Green Line of Phase-I.

This follows an assurance given by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) to over 40,000 residents of Srikantapura Anchepalya village that it would build three roads to ensure easy connectivity from the station to their houses.

The Rs 298-crore elevated Reach-3C line of Phase-II runs for a distance of 3.03 km between Hesaraghatta Cross and Madavar (formerly Bangalore International Exhibition Centre) and has three stations of Manjunathana Nagar, Chikkabidarakallu (Jindal Nagar) and Madavar.

Over 1,500 people from the village are employed in garment factories in Peenya Industry and Gorguntapalya and are desperate to use this Green Line Extension which will take them to their workspots. Speaking to The New Indian Express, a senior BMRCL official said, “The people were not happy with the location of the Metro station as it was not easily acessible to their villages and wanted the station to be pushed further near the BIEC. The work was stalled for nearly five months because of that as they did not allow us to carry out any construction work.”

In the presence of the local MLA S R Viswanath a consensus was arrived at recently that BMRCL would build good roads from the station till their villages.

“Only after our assurances, the villages allowed us to go ahead with the Chikkabidarakallu station work, which began a few week ago after a long gap. We will be building one road each to the North and South of the station and one approach road.

Last week BDA had handed over a parcel of land that we required to build the road passing in the South side through Jindal company and a private apartment complex.

On the North side, we will acquire road from private parties and extend the present Kirloskar Road there,” the official elaborated.

Each of these two roads will run to a width of 12 metres and a length of 700 metres. “The approach road will just run to 300 metres," he added.

Much of the infrastructure work on this Metro Line has been completed, said another Metro official.