Afcons & Shankaranarayana Awarded Bangalore Metro Phase 2A Work
Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. and Shankaranarayana Constructions Pvt. Ltd. on Monday were finally issued work orders to construct the 18.236 km Central Silkboard – KR Puram (Phase 2A) project of the 57 km Blue Line.
Tenders for this elevated line’s construction on the Outer Ring Road were invited by Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) in December 2019, and both firms emerged as the lowest bidders among 9 in October 2020.
The 1st package (Silkboard – Kodibeesanahalli) includes a 9.859 km viaduct, 6 elevated stations and a roughly 2.84 km long flyover with loops at Central Silkboard. The 2nd package (Kodibeesanahalli – KR Puram) includes a 8.377 km viaduct, 7 elevated stations, a 1.097 km depot-line linking to the existing Baiyapanahalli Depot and a 0.30 km pocket track.
Package 1 – 9.859 KM
Awarded to: Afcons Infrastructure
- Deadline: 27 months
- BMRCL’s Estimate: Rs. 731.18 Crore
- Afcons’ Bid & Final Contract Value: Rs. 7,852,380,452.00 (Rs. 785.24 crore)
Contract: Package 1- PHASE 2A/P1/60(a)
Scope: Construction of elevated structures (Viaduct & Stations) of length 9.859 km from Chainage 0.000 m to 9859.000 m and 6 Nos of elevated metro stations viz, Central Silk Board, HSR layout, Agara, Ibbalur, Bellandur, Kadubeesanahalli including road widening, Utility diversion and allied works of Bengaluru Metro Rail Project Phase-2A. AND Construction of loops, ramps for road flyover at Central Silk Board junction of approx. length of 2.84 Km including Road widening & allied works in Reach5 line (R5/P4) of Bengaluru Metro Rail Project, Phase-2.
Package 2 – 8.377 KM
Awarded to: Shankaranarayana Constructions
- Deadline: 27 months
- BMRCL’s Estimate: Rs. 594.25 crore
- Shankaranarayana’s Bid and Final Contract Value: Rs. 6,235,521,218.00 (Rs. 623.55 crore)
Contract: Package 2 – PHASE 2A/P2/60(b)
Scope: Construction of elevated structures (Viaduct & Stations) of length 9.774 km from Chainage 9859.000 m to 18236.000 m and 7 Nos of elevated metro stations viz, Kodibeesanahalli, Marathahalli, ISRO, Doddanekundi, DRDO sports complex, Saraswathi Nagar and K R Puram including 1.097 km length link line to Baiyappanahalli Depot, 0.30 km length Pocket track, Road widening, Utility diversion and allied works of Bengaluru Metro Rail Project Phase -2A
Detailed information of this line from its DPR can be viewed here. Trains of this line will be stabled at the existing Baiyappanahalli Depot which will be remodeled and repurposed.
The Central Government’s cabinet in April approved the Blue Line’s construction in Phase 2A and 2B, and a bulk of the funds for it will be sourced through loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Utility diversion, demolition and other pre-construction activities have been underway since 2019 by small-time contractors, but additional work will be required by both contractors.
With this exciting development, I’m expecting basic site preparation work to start in Q3 2021 with full fledged construction work in Q4 2021. The state government has set a June 2025 deadline for starting commercial operations, which to me is highly aggressive and not attainable.
For more updates, check out my Home Page!
– TMRG
Hat-tip: Oswald
Did the construction start ?
Yes…it’s ending tomorrow
And opening to public the day after.
And they have repaid all the adb and jica loans
I have travelled today 🙂
I can drive my car too in the track
You guys are so late. I’ve been commuting on this track all this time.
Finally!!!
I have been waiting for this news for so long. Hopefully we will see construction updates and pictures in a couple of months.
4.5 years for 17km and 13 stations is approx. 150m per month and 0.12 stations per month per contractor. Assuming span of 30m, that is 5 piers per month per contractor. This is easy provided all the land is acquired. The stations are designed to be the ugliest in the world, so this is entirely possible. No cladding, no finishes, unpainted piers and viaducts. Indian Metros take first place for ugliness.
Shut up ! India for a looonggg time did not have much resources. Only since 2014 improvements are happening, after Bjp came 2 power. The R5, R6, P2A and P2B will have SOTA (State Of The Art) features. They won’t be ugly anymore.
Have you seen the station designs? How are you so sure?
For some people, this country has come alive only since 2014! For others it’s been disaster after disaster starting with the de-monetisation which forced millions of small businesses to shut down and made many more millions jobless. Colossal ignorance!
Construction hasn’t even started and you started whining about painting.
Ya, who needs paint! Why should anything look good. We are an old civilization, no paint required. Why 4 years, take 10 years to build 17km. Our civilization is the best! We should suffer with high taxes and low services. Because our civilizations is… oh well..
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.0183224,121.4648383,3a,75y,13.51h,107.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stItA0VcOhMjkjK7ipNPEDg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Personally, I believe 4 years is not a very long time for this kind of Infra project. It’s not just piers and stations. Signaling, track laying and yeah, however little it may be, painting too. Like TMRG says it’s aggressive and may take little longer (and depends on 3rd Wave of Covid-19 etc).
Can it be done faster, may be (it always can). But is it too long? not really.
I do believe awarding the contract itself has taken too long, though.
Nice to read your reply. 4.5 years too long? Yes(pre-covid), for civil and structural. Factors unrelated to contractor efficiency that could delay the civil and structural work:
(1) Will each contractor have access to ~5 pier locations per month?
(2) Are the designs final ?
(3) Unforeseen buried utilities
(4) Availability and lead of girder casting yard(s)
With Afcons and Shankaranarayana, we need not worry about financial solvency or efficiency.
I can’t help bringing up the ugly designs of the Bangalore stations and the surface finishes of the piers and superstructure. Why are they being accepted by the authority? As a society, we seem to manage our expectations very well and are just happy to get at least something.
Agreed💯
The purpose of metro is to commute to point B from point A comfortably in a AC chair car beating all traffic chaos. No traveler ll be interested to look at unpainted pillars or aesthetics of a station. He ll more than happy once he reaches destination comfortably and he doesn’t care for whatever u mentioned.
You are right. We should have very low expectations from the government.
If aesthetics does not matter, why do you choose clothes? Clothes are for protecting us from the weather. Why bother what car we drive, it’s just to take us from point A to B. Phones, houses, airports, railway stations, hairstyles. Why are everyone praising the new railway station?
Okay if aesthetics bothers you . Why do you eat rice roti sabzi everyday ? Do you eat Pizza Burger Biriyani Sizzlers Sushi’s or whatever exotic continental food to quench your hunger ? BTW metro systems are a kinda new for our country at least me and u have seen and traveled in this, think about 2/3rd of population who don’t even know what is this. First let govt build all promised metro in next circular if we have surplus funds we can think about aesthetics.
You talk of the 2/3 who have not seen a Metro. So you’re saying they don’t deserve aesthetics? If done smartly, you can have aesthetics within the same budget. Look at the Taiwan metro, it looks like our Metro, but at least the designers were not lazy like ours. You can see it on Google Maps Street View. Also in other countries authorities and contractors don’t use construction as an excuse to make a mess of the existing roads.
Settling for less is what got us into this mess. The government thinks”these guys will take any c&%p, lets keep the money for ourselves “.
Wonder why BMRCL took so much time to take this step? They could have given LoA much earlier if they haven’t waited for centre’s approval for so long.
How will they pay contractors if they have no money and loans are not available because central govt hasn’t yet approved?
Because they won’t be the first ones to start construction while their proposal is pending with the centre. Dmrc did it with noida extension few years ago, ncrtc is doing the same in the Haryana section of the Delhi-Alwar smart line.
They couldn’t even finalise the funding pattern for the major part of 2019. Not anybody else’s problem if they can’t do their jobs properly.
Not interested in what Haryana, Noida or whoever else did whatever. It is up to each state to decide how to go about things. Doesn’t mean they are not doing their jobs.
State gave over 1500 crores for land acquisition and then must have asked BMRC to await center’s approval to raise loans for any further capital as they may have been tight for funds with covid lockdowns and loss of revenues. Don’t see anything wrong.
Hope it can open in 2026. That would be acceptable to me.
It will take 6 years, more likely 2027.
For 2nd package, Afcon’s bid was only 17 cr more than L1 bidder shankaranarayana. Was it worth giving contract to this new company and risking on timelines just for 17cr? Not mention the hardship caused to lakhs of commuters if they under perform or go simplex way
Shankaranarayana, seems a new contractor name in Metro. Suprised.
They are big gaints in irrigation construction, now they have NH and this metro. Company having 70years of experience in construction.
I Am sure that they will complete this project with in 27 months only if BMRCL can pay on time.
Shankaranarayana may prove to be blessing. This being their first metro project, they will be eager to prove their credentials, and bag more projects elsewhere. So hoping for the best here.
A question that I asked in another post about who is doing the silk board flyover loops is answered here as being part of Afcons scope of work.
News to cheer up amidst all the gloom. Hope the project is completed in time. Hats off to BMRCL for all the ground work and following up with the central government for sanctions. Well done 👍.
Finally here it is. The route with worst traffic in Bangalore can hope to have this nightmare end in half a decade from now. This route has all the top companies of the IT sector like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, Samsung, SAP Adobe, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo to name a few. The employees from the companies located in this route used to spend a lot of time on road everyday. A metro connecting Silk Board to KR Puram is boon to all of them.
This is awesome news. 1 month wait after central government nod to award the contracts isn’t too bad although they could have done it earlier.
@metrorailguy – Would you be updating the ‘Quick Snapshot’ page to reflect the change from ‘Approved’ to ‘Under Construction’ or do you wait for construction to start? I have a similar query for Chennai and Surat metro as well.
Hi, I’m going to update it when piling work begins. I consider everything before that (eg. barricading, utility shifting, geotechnical investigation, test piling etc.) as pre-construction work.
This is fantastic news. But I can’t help but wonder out loud how will the ridership be? The areas proposed fall under the IT corridor. If, hypothetically speaking, wfh becomes a long term option, won’t the ridership be minimal? Of course there are other classes of people, like retirees and other industries but the IT crowd makes up the bulk.
Ridership will never fall short in Asian countries. There’s also the phenomenon of good transit attracting residents and businesses.
Suggest they do under ground from agara to iblur or even till Bellandur as it’s straight stretch n agara to iblur has very good trees in both sides it’s better to do under ground which also reduce trouble in construction n commuters during construction…
Are their 2 stations in silk Borad?
Yes, one for the yellow line and another for the blue line(Orr).
Details and locations of each: https://themetrorailguy.com/2020/02/12/bmrcl-relocates-silkboard-station-of-bangalore-metros-orr-line-5/
Please make one more column and start adding PMC details for the respective package also. That will be so helpful for us.
There should be some method of stopping PIL in this project. I only hope no paid NGO suddenly wakes up and files a PIL against this project. Already the metro projects take double of the estimated time for completion. This has a time of 27 months. Lets hope this sets the record straight and BMRCL has got all the necessary clearances.
Such … passions in the comment section – be civil, guys!
No need to be so salty
Finally contracts have been awarded and work orders are issued and work should start within 45days . 2A can be finished within 24 months as it requires very little or no private land as most work is carried on wide ORR. Need to have at least 10 rigging machines so that ten pillars can be worked at same time. I stay close to project if possible i keep posting pics once work starts.
Any progress in the past few months since May?
Afcons are laying behind too much shapurji is confident hopefully.
Afcons are laging behind too much shapurji is confident hopefully.