Bengaluru: To ease the woes of Namma Metro commuters Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Thursday flagged off the second six-car rake and also inaugurated the much-delayed foot over bridge (FOB) at Majestic.
The Chief Minister flagged off the train at 11 am from Kempegowda Metro Station and Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwar was also present.
The first coach of new train will be reserved for women and it will run on the Purple Line (Byappanahalli to Mysuru Road), which enjoys higher passenger ridership than Green Line (Nagasandra to Yelachenahalli).
BMRCL clarifies that six-car trains may be operated as a loop train on the Green Line based on the demand. As a six-car train can carry 2,004 passengers, as against 973 in three-coach rakes, BMRCL is planning to introduce three more such rakes by end of November initially on Purple Line and subsequently on Green Line.
"When a six-car train service began in Purple Line in February, the commuters started complaining that only one train had six coaches, which most of them tend to miss it and have to make do with three-coach train. We expect that this should not happen in the Green Line," said Shravanthi S, a regular user of Green Line.
“It is just a start for the BMRCL to give its complete support for the Bengaluru citizens. We know that running only a few trains will not be useful for the commuters. But BMRCL is sure that all 50 trains are expected to get six coaches by June 2019,” a senior BMRCL official told Deccan Chronicle.
Foot over bridge
It has been two months since the Foot Over Bridge (FOB) connecting BMTC and KSRTC bus stands with Kempegowda Majestic Metro Interchange Station was completed. However, it was not thrown open to the public. Finally on Thursday the Chief Minister inaugurated FOB at Majestic. A BMRCL source said that FOB work was completed five months back and it was delayed for some internal reason. The Kempegowda Majestic Metro Interchange Station, which has been operational since 2016, is one of the busiest metro stations and passengers have been waiting for the FOB to open for better multi-modal integration. “It helps passengers to switch quickly between various modes like BMTC, KSRTC. All these days we were forced to use busy roads or the underpass. This FOB will be very helpful for us and we also expect the same quick work for another FOB connecting Metro Station and platform of KSR railway station (City Railway station)” said Arun D., a passenger.
