Karnataka mulls Mumbai-like ‘war room’ to speed up Namma Metro work

BENGALURU: The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) is likely to have a “war room” with authorities from various government departments to speed up the project.
Sources say state urban development department secretary, along with senior BMRCL officials, will soon visit Mumbai and study the functioning of the war room.
In 2015, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis set up the ‘CM’s war room’ housed in the Mantralaya building with a team of young professionals to monitor large infrastructure projects in the state.It was aimed to ensure such projects do not get delayed because of the poor coordination among multiple departments.
“The same war room will be replicated here. Land acquisition for the projects, including Metro, often gets delayed due to poor coordination. In many places, lands are owned by agencies like BBBMP, BDA, BWSSB and NHAI, so there are delays in acquiring those lands. The proposed war room will sort out all those issues and bring all agencies under one roof. The delay in acquiring land is one of the reasons for the slow-paced Metro work” said a senior official. This apart, co-ordination with the civic agencies for shifting of utility lines was also hampering the speed of the project.
The Maharashtra CM’s office closely monitor projects like Mumbai’s eight-lane Coastal Road, five Metro rail projects, Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway and irrigation projects from the war room fortnightly to ensure officials stick to their deadlines and coordination hurdles are resolved.
In Karnataka too, the proposed war room is likely to monitor progress of the work through live feed of the work through CCTV cameras. A mobile app is also likely to be developed to keep track of these projects on the go.
With an average speed of work at 4km per year for the Namma Metro project vis-a-vis 25 km per year for the Delhi metro, the state government appears to have taken note of the slowness in the completion of the project.
The above issues were discussed at a meeting between BMRCL officials and deputy chief minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan on Friday. According to personnel, who attended the meeting, the BMRCL suggested there were several issues pertaining to land acquisition of the project, which has led to incessant delays in the completion of Metro stretches.
Soon after the meeting, Narayan tweeted: “A special war room like model to alleviate the roadblocks in implementing any govt project is the need of the hour. It was decided to discuss this proposal with the @CMofKarnataka @BSYBJP soon. (sic)”