A suburban rail route to the Bengaluru airport is on the anvil and services are expected to start before 2020, as earlier promised.
The services will start with two trains that will run from Majestic and gradually more trains will be added to the airport, Divisional Railway Manager Ashok Kumar Verma announced during a meeting with Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya and a group of activists on Thursday.
Railway officials in Bengaluru said that work on the station halt at Trumpet Flyover near the Kempegowda International Airport has already started on October 30 and should be ready by December 2019. While the train will not reach the airport terminal, the Kempegowda International Airport operator will run a shuttle bus service to cater to the suburban rail users.
Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya said, “It takes more than 2 or 2.5 hours for anyone in the city to reach the Airport due to the saturated traffic situation in Bengaluru today. This will benefit at least half a million people of Bengaluru.”
He added, “The KIAL will also run feeder services for last-mile connectivity from the Devanahalli Halt to the airport as and when the trains are scheduled to arrive. Similarly, they will provide drop services to the Devanahalli Halt as per the arrivals of the trains.”
Other important announcements made by the officials include work on quadrupling of tracks between Cantonment and Whitefield that will begin from the second week of November, and tender for building a new terminal for suburban rail.
Bengaluru Central MP PC Mohan again met Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi on Thursday to expedite the formation of the long-pending special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the suburban rail project.
This comes after Tejasvi Surya had also met NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on the issue on Wednesday.
These meetings come ahead of a meeting by the Extended Railway Board on November 4, which has to approve the project specifics after which the Union Cabinet will clear the project.