First Metro pier comes up inside Kempegowda International airport campus

BENGALURU: The first Metro pier inside the premises of Kempegowda International Airport was cast on Saturday afternoon marking a significant breakthrough for the final stretch of the Phase 2B line from Yelahanka to the Airport terminal station. A total of 67 piers will dot the 15-km line.

It took a little over three hours to complete. “Work on the line began at 1.35 pm and ended at 3.36 pm,” Colonel Vinod Sasalatti, Deputy Chief Engineer, Airport Line, Package 3, BMRCL, told TNIE. Contractor NCC is executing the work.

“It has taken us four months since we began barricading the portion of the airport to ready the pillars. We had to transplant nearly 200 trees that dotted the line, and shift a water utility line, as well as electrical poles to facilitate the work. We had to get permission from Bangalore International Airport Limited at every stage as it passes via their campus,” Sasalatti said.

A total of 16 cubic metres of concrete, brought from the casting yard of Doddajala were brought in a mixer and poured into a pier shutter to facilitate it. The pier touches a height of 8 metres and has a diameter running to 1.6 metres, the official explained. “The pier will be allowed to settle in this condition for 18 hours,” Sasalatti added.

The pier shutter is a unique piece of equipment where the segments are assembled together at the spot with numerous bolts. The 38.44-km KR Puram to KIA line has been divided into three packages. It will be mostly elevated, with just 900 metres running underground inside the airport terminal.

“The two stations inside the terminal will be built by BIAL. Package 3 is on target to meet the Metro Phase-2 deadline of March 2025,” he added.