The much-delayed Namma Metro project requires a technocrat to steer it out of the mess it is in, Metro Man E Sreedharan said here on Tuesday.

" The first advice from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in its detailed project report to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation was to have a technocrat head it. But it was not heeded. An IAS officer will not have the commitment, dedication and accountability of a technocrat in executing the project on time. BMRC has had five IAS officers as chiefs so far. The delay in completing BMRC' s 42-km Phase I network has disappointed the entire country," said Sreedharan, who was in the vanguard of implementing the Delhi Metro, at a media interaction.

Bengaluru was the third city in the country to take up the project in 2003, after Kolkata and New Delhi. While five years is the norm to complete a Metro project, only two stretches - spanning 19.1 km - are operational till now. Phase I is likely to be completed only next year.

Delhi Metro, however, took only four years to start operations on a 10-km network. The 65-km network was functional in seven years and three months; the deadline was 10 years. Sreedharan headed DMRC for 14 years.

The second suggestion ignored by BMRC was to start underground work first. " The nature of these projects is very complex, technically. I suggested they begin with the Majestic station but they didn' t. They took up the easier, elevated sections instead," he said.

Pointing out that even Delhi Metro work was hampered during tunnelling, he said they, however, fixed the problem in 45 days. In Bengaluru, a tunnel boring machine which was stuck took nearly a year to be replaced.

According to him, the delay has escalated Bengaluru Metro cost by 60%. " They have availed costly loans. The services will suffer in future if it becomes an ailing PSU," he added.


" Two experienced technical directors left BMRC last year — BS Sudhir Chandra and DD Pahuja. Losing such men and getting new people with less experience in Metro systems affected BMRC' s growth. I am shocked why the government kept mum," he added.

Sreedharan is also upset with the decision to extend the Metro up to the Kempegowda International Airport. " Citizens would not like to travel such a long distance by the ordinary Metro. DMRC prepared a DPR for a high-speed Metro with just two to three stops and 28 minutes travel time. But the state government gave the project to BMRC, which scrapped it," he said.


Snapped ties for good

BMRC has an ego problem. It thinks it is as big as DMRC, so why should it take advice from the latter? When we said Majestic station will not be ready in time, the then BMRC MD N Sivasailam didn' t like it. He wanted to discontinue with DMRC as their prime consultant. I sensed it and withdrew our association with BMRC for good

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/Only-a-technocrat-can-save-Namma-Metro-Sreedharan/articleshow/48535998.cms

I am bit surprised as why he is speaking at this time and did not  speak earlier.
Finally Sreedhanran so called METRO Man speaking the Truth and I am happy about it..
But equally surprised why Sreedharan was keeping quite til now of Mejestic Interchange work not taken up  at the start  Why he did not make noise about it.
He did noise about HSRL but not about METRO delay.
 Also interesting to note : BMRCL  will be Financially burden on State Govt as sick PSU.  I hope citizens of Bangalore realize at the earliest other wise we end paying more taxes and more cess for Petrol.
 

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Frustrations are running high at the very high revenue generating centre in Bangalore. Historically ITPL/EPIP was built with almost no connectivity options and it has remained that for years now and the days of complaining are over. It has turned to a mutiny of sorts in the recent days, where the residents have gone to the extent to propose to break away from BBMP itself..

It is in the best interest for BMRCL to start work on the eastern side expansion(ph II) from Byp to Kadugodi via ITPL immediately. It for the least will surely help them recover costs fast as ridership will surely be very high there..

However BMRCL is busy looking elsewhere and trying to go extending the western line on the Mysore road side instead. Mysore road is a comparitively low traffic region with very good road facilities either already present or getting ready (ring road multi-grade flyover). Hence it would make perfect sense to take up work on the west line expansion in the end of ph 2.

And the govt sleeps through alll this!

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" the contracts were riddled with loopholes. Aspects like earthwork at stations were not included in the contracts. When it came to implementation, the contractors backed out saying it is not part of the deal. The BMRC finally ended up coughing up extra money towards these works.

Sources point to many such incomplete tenders floated which did not clarify whether the BMRC will pay for itiner aries directly or whether cost will be borne by contractors. Eventually , the company ended up picking up the hefty tab."

more here

Hope someone..anyone can make it better now!

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http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/namma-metro-set-to-expand-to-nagasandra-how-to-make-it-usable-profitable
 

Well, I have paid my respects here to Namma Metro. 

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Only 40000 Phpdt due to speed restrictions. Is it sufficient?

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Only 40000 Phpdt due to speed restrictions. Is it sufficient?

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With already Indiranagar hitting speed restrictions,  now  with further curves on METRO at Mahadevapura and end Kadugodi,  first its going under ground at magadi road and coming  with lot of curves.  1  At Deepanjali Nagar, its 90 Degree  2. At Vijaya Nagar its 60 Degree,    3. It dips down to undegropund  4. At Head post office,  its 60 Degree   5. Coming to elevated level at MG Road   6.  At Indiranagar, it has 90 degree  7. After Veevekananda station, it takes left turn  8. At Baiyyappanahalli, its comes to ground level   9.  At KR Puram it will be elevated level  10. At Graphite India, it will be curve adn         Ph-2 METRO Station locations after Baiyyappanhallai  some details : http://bmrc.co.in/pdf/phase2/petitions/23hpc.pdf      http://bmrc.co.in/pdf/phase2/petitions/p2drg.pdf    http://bmrc.co.in/pdf/phase2/petitions/24hpc.pdf

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With above issues, total travell time between Mysore road and Whitefield will increase drastically  and will have impact on road traffeic

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This  corridor has 14 station namely :

Jyothipuram, K.R.Puram, Narayanapura, Mahadevapura, Garudacharyapalya, Doddanakundi, Vishvesharaiah Industrial Estate, Kundalahalli, Vaidehi Hospital, Satyasai Medical Institute, ITPL, Kadugodi, Ujwala Vidyalaya and Whitefield.      

     http://bmrc.co.in/pdf/phase2/phase2forweb.pdf   It all depends on how BMRCL is considering Commuters as Customers or Pain area for METRO.  

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Metro should have ideally connected Majestic to ITPL and Majestic to Electronic City. These two are the main IT corridors in Bengaluru as anyone knows. But Phase 1 goes to South and  West Bengaluru to Justify it is serving all the parts of Bengaluru. Electronic City and ITPL not covered in phase 1. Instead of working on Vijaynagar Elevated Section for Purple Line, if they had worked on the BYPL - Whitefield stretch, we could have had MG Road - Whitefield operational now recovering lots of money to BMRCL.

Also Underground section resulted in lot of delay, though majority of people claim that it should have been underground throughout, it would have further delayed the project. Hyderabad goes  elevated.We could have got a faster Metro, but there would have been more delay since this is Deccan Plateau..

With 10Lakh people working in whitefield area as reported by recent survey, atleast 4-5 Lakh people commute from south, east and west Bengaluru. Pink Metro with 40,000 PHP, might not be sufficient during peak hours. We need parallel options to decongest Whitefield such as Commuter Rail, BRTS on Outer Ring Road between silkboard/hebbal, Light Rail / Monorail from Marathalli Bridge to probably Brookefield or somewhere in whitefield where there is no Phase 2 Metro connectivity.

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Krishan TBM is just completing one tunnel for one track,  other track drilling still to start.

That means,  PH-1 as per  DPR  will be ready  by only 2017. 

Why BMRCL not disclosing these aspects to public and  CM / PM.

How much money needed to be  pumped  to complet Ph-1,   no  clarity for public or for GOVT.

BMRCL is keeping every one including Govt   without any info and wht is their in store in next 2/3  yrs on the cost and how this will have impact on Karnataka Govt budget allocation.

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Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited must be headed by a person who can be held accountable if the project is not sustainable after operations begin, E. Sreedharan said.

“I was the Managing Director for 14 years. This period is necessary to have dedication and accountability. It is the same with Technical Directors. They were changed last year when they had just begun to grasp the enormity of the project. New people will have to start from a scratch,” he said. However, Mr. Sreedharan attributed the problem to the State government and said that the government was yet to understand the benefits that a city would have from a functioning and profit-making metro project. “I am getting a little worried about Bengaluru. The challenge is financial sustainability. If you have to depend on the government subsidy every year, it will be a sad state of affairs,” he said

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bmrcl-head-should-be-made-accountable-if-project-is-not-sustainable-sreedharan/article7555655.ece?ref=tpnews

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Any Project Manager will attempt difficult and long lead  activity and  BMRCL has done it excatly opposite.\

Thats why we have Jayanagar segment and Kengeri Segment were ready two year back and 6000 to 7000 crroe was wasted for two years ( simple interest calculation will be for two years will be Rs 1200 to 1500 Crore lost by BMRCL )

Same way BMRCL does not care for Commuters is very evident from the thing : Yesvanthpur Railway station and METRO station connectivity does not have skywalk till now.

After segment of Jalahallo opened,  they have called subway at METRO stations at Pennya, Jalahalli,  is this way of planning.

Poor way of Handling commercial space at all METRO stations :  almost  One Lakh Sq Ft built up area is vacant in all  METRO stations to gether : imagine how much rent BMRCL is loosing every day on commercial aspect.

Now also same thing happening : Whitefield section will be taken last and on Mysore road they BMRCL will do  first.

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Average speed of Bangalore Metro is 30kph looking at the existing running speeds. Worldwide they achieve around 50 kph. 

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Now we know why Mr. Sreedharan did not take up the BMRCL project! Bangalore is the hornets nest of politicians and their chamchas running all the public services. Have you forgotten the number of jobs created by the cab companies and auto owners? Or the water tanker transporters? I could go on but let us not clamour for a Metro without considering its social impact. Would it be so bad if we could all give up our four wheelers and rode on our 2-wheelers - Just imagine, Sidaramu, Sikka, Jaishankar, Mantri, Razack, Kumar Babu, Reddy, Kirloskar, Kaushik Mukherjee, Kharola and other VIP riffraff commuted by 2-wheeler (We should ask our Italian mafia to create the required "Image" vehicles)! The Metro aint gonna happen, so dont hold your breath! Do you see your realtor type or neta type worried? No.

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After some time there is some news about tunneling in the papers today..aparently Krishna TBM is 10 mts from breakthrough at Chikpet station coming from City Market stn..remember it drills 1 mtr a day...so its still atleast about 1 week to comeout...after that it has to drill about 850 mts..thats 850 days? thats is 28 months to come to Majestic!

SO that means metro Ph I is delayed for atleast 2 more years!

Wonder who is keeping track of the loss to the corporation because of this delay..I am sure none, because if they were, then they would have worked better and smarter!

Afterall who's money what goes!

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Govt. looks like is not interested in timely completion. Recently there were serious comments from E Sridharan on the slow pace of Metro work and removal of technical expertise. Metro being one of the major infrastructure project of a huge scale requires a full time MD and not a part-time one. Pradeep Singh Kharola (MD) of BMRCL has been given additional responsibilities in tourism dept. and looks like currently he is abroad promoting tourism as a Govt. representative. This shows Govt's callousness on this important project.

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BMRCL seems to be on the edge of securing a 2,000 crores from France now, since the Japanese denied any more loans till PH 1 completed..

more here

What is interesting to note is " The repayment deadline is 15 years, he added. The interest rate has been linked to Euribor (Euro Interbank Offered Rate)

For the poor record BMRCL has till date, forget running the PH 2 lines profitably, it probably wont even be complete!

Wonder what confidence the french are doling out this loan!

The other thing is this money will be used to start work on Mysore road and Kanakapura road extensions, which for sure will not improve ridership drastically as they will head into less populated areas of the city!

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BMRCL is planning a  parking lot at MG Road now after 4 years of operation of reach 1. They should have done it during its inaguration. Also, buses should have been started between Byappanahalli to ITPL and Byappanahalli to Ring Road probably Sarjapur or Silkboard. Ridership would have shooted up.

Reach 3 is doing good, only problem is the lack of underpasses to cross the NH highway to reach stations in Nagasandra, Peenya etc.

BMTC and BMRCL are working in isolation. Proper feeder network is needed for which a proper study has to be done.

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