Tunnel Boring Machine lowered at Cantonment metro station

A month after resuming the work on the 13.9-km underground metro line from Shivajinagar, the BMRCL lowered the second tunnel boring machine (TBM) at the Cantonment station.

The machine’s middle and front shields were lowered by a giant crane on Thursday. Once they are assembled along with the cutter head, the machine will start digging through the ground.

Officials in the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) said they were trying to speed up the pending work to ensure minimum cost escalation in the project caused by a delay due to the lockdown.

The 13.9-km tunnel section, part of the 21 km Gottigere-Nagawara line, faced delays during the tendering process in the past two years. The work was finally awarded in the first quarter of 2019.

Larsen and Toubro Limited has bagged two of the four packages: Shivajinagar-Tannery Road and Vellara Junction-Shivajinagar, which have come with a deadline of 42 months to complete the work.