External audit of Metro Phase 1 infra next month: Dy CM

Metro services on Indiranagar-MG Road stretch is likely to resume on Tuesday afternoon with officials set to conduct trial runs to ensure that pillar 155 remains safe after the repair.

Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, who visited the site of the repair work on Monday, said the honeycombing formation (gap inside concrete) in the crossbeam of the pillar had been repaired under the watch of experts from the Indian Institute of Science.

Officials will ride a train on Tuesday and assess the safety of the stretch above the pillar. Regular operations will resume in the second half of the day. Officials from the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) will monitor the structure for the next one week.

“I have been informed that the entire civil infrastructure of Namma Metro Phase 1 would be subjected to external audit to check for similar problems in other places,” he said.

BMRCL Managing Director Ajay Seth said they would call for an external audit next month. “The audit process may take about three months. The quality audit will focus to find structures with similar problems,” he said.

Barricades to remain

The barricades around the metro pillar near Trinity Circle, which has created a bottleneck on the busy stretch of MG Road, will remain for a week. “The raised platform below the pillar has to remain in place to facilitate the continuous monitoring of the structure,” Seth said.

Officials said 80 buses were deployed on Friday and Saturday. The number of buses was increased from 80 in the morning to 110 in the evening on Monday, to cater to those travelling to the city centre for New Year celebrations.