ITD Begins Blasting for Bangalore Metro’s Venkateshpura Station

While a crew of ITD Cementation India in Mumbai was celebrating the completion of tunneling work on Tuesday, another ITD crew in Bangalore began controlled blasting work to excavate Venkateshpura Station on Bangalore Metro’s 21.386 km Line-4 (Reach 6 / Pink Line) which will connect Nagawara – Kalena Agrahara through 18 stations.

Construction work on this underground station of the 73.92 km Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project started on August 31. As of November-end, ITD Cem’s team had completed casting works on 101/497m of its retaining wall and excavated approximately 7,000/120,000 cubic meters of soil.

On Tuesday afternoon – as part of further excavation works in tough terrain – workers conducted two blasts using 8 kg of explosives supplied by Ideal Supply Inc. Going forward, they will conduct 7 to 8 blasts daily.

ITD’s scope of work involves building the line’s 4.591 km Package RT-04 (Tannery Road – North Ramp) with 6.34 km of twin tunnels, roughly 360 meter ramp at Nagawara, and four stations at Tannery Road, Venkateshpura, Kadugundanahalli (formerly Arabic College) and Nagawara.

Alignment of ITD Cem’s Package RT-04 – view Bangalore Metro Phase 2 info & route map
explosives being brought in
Side lane closed down
rubber mats to reduce / muffle the intensity

ITD Cementation plans to use two refurbished Herrenknecht mixed shield earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel boring machines (TBMs), currently stored in Chennai, with serial numbers S-839 and S-840. From what I hear – they are scheduled to arrive in town in April 2021.

Per the tunneling plan, they will first travel 822.99m south from Venkateshpura to Tannery Road, pass through the station box and tunnel 209.585m towards the retrieval shaft. After that, they will be brought back to Venkateshpura for tunneling 1172.16m towards Kadugundanahalli and a further 916.709m to Nagawara Station’s TBM retrieval shaft.

Meanwhile, I hear that L&T’s 4th (and final) tunnel boring machine, TBM Lavi, is scheduled to start tunneling works from Cantonment Station towards MG Road in the last week of January.

For more updates, check out the Bangalore section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG

written by

Global traveler who prefers mass rapid transit

11 Responses to "ITD Begins Blasting for Bangalore Metro’s Venkateshpura Station"

  1. Anonymous says:

    Hey TMRG
    What do you think is the reason for BMRCL not inaugurating the Southern extension of green line?
    I have seen few rakes on the viaduct, and the station boards are also fixed and the yellow boards for telling when the next train is can also be seen from road level.
    Why are they delaying the inauguration? Just asking.

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      They are likely waiting on politicians (state/national) to confirm dates. This circus leading up to the inauguration plays out all over the country.

      Reply
  2. Harish says:

    Why it’s not started in gottigere still

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Line terminates at Kalena Agrahara and won’t go to Gottigere. Last station is under construction in front of Loyola Industrial Training Institute.

      Reply
  3. Ronith says:

    Hey TMRG.
    Any particular reason why ITD has not already brought the TBM’s here? Is it because ITD is still not ready, in terms of sites to lower the TBM etc, to deploy them?
    Thank you

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Venkateshpura is not ready – this entire post is about it 🙂

      They likely have no local storage space in or around the station, and will bring them in only when the station is ready. Target is April.

      PS: Afcons’ 1st Herrenknecht TBM for Package RT-01 is arriving in the city this weekend from Chennai Port.

      Reply
  4. Zaabi says:

    Hello Sir,
    I like to know this from you,
    Is there road get broad/ Road extend between arabic college to nagavara ?
    Please Kindle let me know this answer
    Thank you

    Reply
  5. Veerayya says:

    Please update schedule for Metro train availability up to Anjanapura (Kanakapura road).

    Reply

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