Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, on Monday, January 2, said that the Phase 2 of Namma Metro will be completed before 2024. He added that work on the Rs 26,000-crore Phase 3 will be launched immediately after approval is received from the union government. Bommai was speaking at the launch of the booth vijaya abhiyan of the BJP at Shivajinagar in Bengaluru,

Earlier, a top official of the Bengaluru metro had said that the metro rail project is on track to complete 175 km of commute by June 2025. Addressing a session on the ‘future of mobility’ at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2022 in November, Anjum Parwez, Managing Director, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL), said as part of the second and third phase of the project, Bengaluru will have 314 km of metro rail connectivity by 2041.

He said construction of metro lines is also progressing well on the airport side. He said the biggest challenge in urban mobility is the integration of multi-modal transport systems and to move people to get into public transport from personalised transport modes.
Parwez said BMRCL is getting a lot of support from startups in mobility to ensure that commuters have the last-mile connectivity. He said the corporation is tying up with mobility providers to get people to reach the nodal point and to commute to their workplaces.
Parwez said the Namma Metro has recently gone digital with its payment options that include the use of QR code scans and UPI-based payment options which has met with good response from commuters.

He said BMRCL is working on a transit oriented development where commuters live close to the stations and to the workplace. Besides, the BMRCL also intends to integrate all aggregators by bringing out a mobility card for commuters.

He said the corporation is in talks with BMTC to have bus stops at metro stations to help commuters hop on and hop off both modes of transport. The BMRCL is also working on introducing shopping options for commuters inside and outside the metro stations. He said the BMRCL plans to sell office space in metro stations and provide end-to-end solutions to all the stakeholders.