Bangalore: A ‘NammaRailu’ workshop was conducted for elected representatives at Vidhana Soudha on Tuesday on the Bangalore Suburban Rail Service project. The workshop was jointly organised by Centre of Public Policy IIM-B, Praja-RAAG, Bangalore Needs You and Directorate of Urban Transport (DULT).
Bringing together key stakeholders, the workshop generated constructive dialogue that reinforced the importance of the project and obtained commitments from elected representatives to support the timely implementation of the Bangalore Suburban Rail Service.
The ‘NammaRailu’ workshop was inaugurated by Vinay Kumar Sorake, Minister for Urban Development, followed by his keynote address. Prof M.V. Rajeev Gowda from Centre for Public Policy, IIM-Bangalore and founder of the movement - ‘Bangalore Needs You’ chaired the proceedings.
Veeranna Mathikatti, former Chairman of the Legislative Council, Shiva Shankar Reddy, Deputy Speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, and R V Venkatesh, Chief Whip Legislative Council. Anil Kumar, UDD Secretary, and R Shivakumar, President, FKCCI were also present.
The Minister emphasised the need to create a political will for ‘NammaRailu’ in his keynote address. Addressing the various stakeholders present at the workshop, he said that everyone should come together to support ‘NammaRailu’ and ensure that the project is included at the February budget session. Rs 500 crore would be released by the state government’s contribution to his project.
‘NammaRailu’ will connect the residents of the city to their workplaces in Electronics City, ITPL, industrial and manufacturing hubs such as Peenya and Bommasandra. It would connect Bangalore city to the surrounding towns such as Tumkur, Bangarpet, Hoskote among others and would be integrated with the existing public transport services such as the bus network and metro network to create a ‘multi-modal mass transit system’.
Prof M V Rajeev Gowda discussed the socio-economic benefits of the project. He said that the Bangalore Suburban Rail project will provide affordable mobility for commuters. It will create reliable and fast accessibility to centers of education, health-care, recreation, industries and businesses leading to tremendous socio-economic benefits for the people of the entire region.
Prof Gowda noted that the cost of construction of a metro system per kilometre is around Rs. 250 crore for an elevated system (as per WSA reports) and Rs 350–400 crore for an underground system. Compared to this, upgrading an existing rail system to accommodate suburban rail would cost around Rs 15-20 crore per kilometre.
With a high carrying capacity of 1.5 lakh commuters per day, and a network spread across 440 sq. km, NammaRailu clearly presents the best possible cost-benefit ratio.
