No Metro between Bengaluru and Tumakuru as government plans suburban rail

In 2016, the state government wanted to extend the Namma Metro to Tumakuru, which is 70 km away from Bengaluru. The then Home minister G Parameshwara had proposed the plan but after three years Parameshwara who is now Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru development minister has dropped the plan and wants to connect the two cities through Suburban rail.

Parmeshwara said, “We are planning to propose a new plan of getting suburban trains connecting Tumakuru and Bengaluru, earlier we had plans of connecting two cities through Metro. The separate railway track will be constructed for the suburban train and also it will run at a frequency of 10 minutes.”

The state government may propose this plan to the central government and railway ministry soon. Parameshwara has not given any reason to drop the metro plan, but the sources in metro say the plan of connecting the Namma Metro to Tumakuru was not feasible and would cost more to implement the project.

The Namma Metro currently, ends near Nagasandra station on Tumakuru road and will be extended till Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) in phase two.

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Speaking to Indianexpress.com, Urban commute expert Sanjeev V. Dyamannanavar said, “Already an exclusive train service is there between Bangalore and Tumakauru and Tumakuru has got a separate platform for suburban rail itself where the train can terminate, but railways are not using it right now.

“Now the express trains take only 50 mins from Yeswanthpur to Tumakuru, and the demand is for increasing the train services and frequency between these two cities. There is a proposal for converting Bangalore city to Tumakuru line into an automatic signal link, which will help to increase the number of trains to run in the same double track, and this will make for a very good suburban train connectivity between Bengaluru and Tumakuru,” he added.