Bangalore Metro’s TBM Urja Records Breakthrough at Pottery Town
Larsen & Toubro’s Tunnel Boring Machine Urja (DZ670) on Thursday afternoon recorded its second breakthrough at Pottery Town Station for Bangalore Metro’s 21.386 km Pink Line (Reach 6).
This Ø6.67m CRCHI slurry machine is part of the Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project’s 2.884 km package RT-03 (Shivajinagar – Tannery Road) which was awarded by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) in February 2019.
After completing the 862m Cantonment – Shivajinagar north-bound tunnel in September 2021, it was then recommissioned in December 2021 to build the 906.702m Cantonment – Pottery Town Station section’s north-bound tunnel.
L&T’s official tunneling estimate for this drive was 280 days and they completed tunneling within just 190 days.
A video can be viewed here.
The machine will now be dragged through the station box and commissioned on its third and final 710.64m assignment towards Shadi Mahal TBM Retrieval Shaft, located south of Tannery Road Station.
Per BMRCL’s June newsletter, Urja’s sister machine – TBM Vindhya (DZ671) working on the same stretch has completed 390.6m for the south-bound tunnel, and I reckon it should arrive at Pottery Town in Q4 this year.
With this development, approximately 47.4% of tunneling work for Phase 2 (total scope: 20,855m) has been completed with 9 out of 26 breakthroughs recorded: 3 on Package RT-01 by Afcons, 2 on RT-02 by L&T, 3 on RT-03 by L&T, and 1 on RT-04 by ITD Cementation.
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– TMRG
Do you think ITD is bit slow compared to other 2 in this stretch ?
I think they were the last to get the award. So they started later than everybody else.
ITD’s RT-04 section is also the most geologically challenging compared to others. At Venkateshpura Station’s site, they performed excavation by literally blasting rock – just like you’d do at a mine:
https://themetrorailguy.com/2020/12/18/itd-begins-blasting-for-bangalore-metros-venkateshpura-station/
Any idea which all companies participated in 72 metro cars tender that BMRCL called last month? Believe technical bids should have been opened on 30th June
Last date for technical bids is July 18th.. Beml n Alstom in the fray
Thank God it not given to some local contractor. They loot everything possible and finish it it 10 years with worst quality construction. Hats off L&T , i hope roads and flyover contract goes to L&T itself.
Yes it shouldn’t go to any local contractors else our hard earned money will go waste as in Tax what we paid