Bangalore Monorail snippets

The proposed 59-km monorail, conceived to act as a feeder service to the Metro project, is seeing some sparks of light. Though the project is pending before ABIDe for approval, two infrastructure majors inked a joint bidding agreement for the monorail proposal in Bangalore. Malaysian-based Scomi Group Bhd and city-based Geodesic Techniques Private Limited, an engineering design and structural company, signed an agreement to submit a joint proposal to the Karnataka government to design, build, own, operate and transfer three monorail lines at an estimated cost of $2.4 billion, for the first phase. Kanesan Veluppillai, president of Scomi International said that the agreement was a show of commitment towards taking up the project. The proposal will be given to the government in the next 30 days. The project will have over 50 elevated stations along three corridors, with depots. The stations would connect several schools and hospitals, and other important public offices and institutions. While Scomi will do the designing and planning, Geodesic will provide civil and structural support. The stations will also have several amenities, but those details have been left to the final planning stages. The proposal to start a monorail in itself is an old one. But during the Kumaraswamy government and after, it failed to chug along. For now, the project is before ABIDe for approval, before being placed before the cabinet. Monorail was conceived as a feeder to the Metro and is to work with BMTC, the Railways and other modes of transport, under an integrated model. The total of the proposed three corridors would be 59 km. Work on the monorail would be completed by three years, once the government gives it the final go-ahead.
Scomi is already in a project with L&T to build a 19.54-km monorail in Mumbai. Veluppillai said they were also looking at expanding operations in Kolkata, Delhi, Kerala and was waiting for the mobility plan announcement in Tamil Nadu, where they were “very keen”. Bangalore is also being considered as a core city. There were likely to be at least nine monorail tenders in the country in the next two years, worth an estimated total of Rs 20,000 crore, he added.