Barricades cleared, Kamaraj Road to open by month-end

Bengaluru: The stretch of Kamaraj Road, connecting Cubbon Road and MG Road, which has been closed for metro construction since 2019, saw some barricades removed and space cleared on Saturday. This is part of efforts to reopen the road by the end of April, following the near-completion of the underground MG Road metro station on the 21.26-km Pink Line.

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited’s (BMRCL) Chief Public Relations officer B L Yashavanth Chavan confirmed that this is being done to clear the space of some of the equipment on the surface to allow traffic flow. “We have set the end of the month as the target. Right now, workers might have cleared the space and opened the barricades to move some of the equipment out,” he said.

Confirming that the basic civic works for the station have completed, a senior metro official, on conditions of anonymity, noted that the electrical work, architecture, design elements and other work necessary for the metro station to function will take about a year to be completed. The Pink Line, which will connect Kalena Agrahara to Nagawara, is slated to open by mid-2025.

However, full access to the stretch will not be available immediately.

“We don’t want to inconvenience vehicle users by requesting the traffic police to barricade different portions of the road every time we want to remove equipment or finish some pending work. Therefore, it is likely that a section of the road will be barricaded for a few weeks while traffic movement is allowed on one lane,” he said.

The BMRCL will hold a meeting with the traffic police next week to discuss how traffic movement can resume on this stretch, he noted.

A traffic police officer attached with the Shivajinagar station noted that this will shift traffic load from BRV Junction and the Anil Kumble Circle.

“Once the stretch opens, people can take a turn towards M G Road there instead of the BRV Junction, so that might ease some traffic on Cubbon Road but shift some congestion to Kamaraj Road,” he said.