Ambedkar Veedhi to be closed for Metro project work

Ambedkar Veedhi to be closed for Metro project work

B.S. Ramesh

Work on an underground rail station has begun

— File photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Always busy: Ambedkar Veedhi in Bangalore which will be closed for the metro project work.

BANGALORE: Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has commenced preparatory work on an underground railway station on Ambedkar Veedhi in front of the Vidhana Soudha and Karnataka High Court buildings here.

The construction work entails closing of the busy road between the two gates of the Vidhana Soudha and the High Court. The security railings of the Vidhana Soudha and the High Court would be pushed back by some metres to enable the authorities to construct a temporary road to ensure smooth movement of traffic on the road.

Roads on either side of the closed Ambedkar Veedhi will come up on the lawns of the High Court and the Vidhana Soudha. The space on the closed stretch of the road will be used by BMRCL for dumping soil excavated at the site and for keeping machinery.

BMRCL Managing Director N. Sivasailam told The Hindu on Saturday that preparatory work relating to the station would be completed shortly.

He said the corporation would have to carefully remove the statues of the national leaders in front of the Vidhana Soudha and keep them in a safe place. The statues were likely to be temporarily installed near the Vikasa Soudha or kept in a museum till completion of work. The corporation had consulted the police and the Government on the closure of the road and temporary construction of a new road.

Once the barricades are in place at the work site and the new roads opened to traffic, BMRCL plans to instruct the contractors to go in for expeditious excavation for construction of the underground railway station.

As soon as the station is ready, BMRCL will ensure that six hi-tech and state-of-the-art tunnelling machines will commence work on the underground stretch of metro.

The tunnelling equipment works on high pressure and as soon as tunnelling is completed, the machine itself will lay concrete around the excavated portion.

Mr. Sivasailam promised the residents of Bangalore that the greenery that would be temporarily lost in front of the High Court and the Vidhana Soudha would be restored once the work was completed.

He, however, said that it was not still clear whether the corporation could retain the Ashoka trees on the median of Ambedkar Veedhi in front of the two buildings. Efforts would be made to protect them.

On complaints by Bangaloreans and environmentalists that BMRCL was indiscriminately felling trees, he said the corporation was willing to raise a botanical garden if land was provided to it.

He said that the corporation had altered the alignment at Jayanagar to ensure that trees on the footpath were not felled.

The trees would only be pruned. The corporation had planted 15,000 saplings at Arkavathi Layout and other layouts coming up in Bangalore.