South Western Railways and Bengaluru Metro are in talks to exchange parcels of land at Baiyappanahalli to amicably resolve their common requirement of land needed for respective projects.

Until now, the Railways and Metro officials were in a fix over land needed between their stations for future proposals.

While SWR needs space at Baiyappanahalli Railway Station to quadruple the Cantonment to Whitefield Railway line, BMRCL also requires the land in between to launch viaducts for the Baiyappanahalli Phase-1 Metro extension to Whitefield.

“We jointly inspected the area. Railways needs private land to be acquired for laying the 3rd and 4th tracks. They want Metro to acquire the private land in between, in exchange of which, we can utilise 1 acre of their land for our extension towards Whitefield,” said Chanappa Goudar, Land Acquisition Officer of BMRCL.

The Metro line will run on the median of Old Madras Road, parallel to the Railway track, heading towards Jyothipuram and KR Puram.

CPRO of SWR, Vijaya, said, “We have sent a detailed estimate to the Railway Board for quadrupling of Bengaluru Cantonment to Whitefield at a cost of Rs 493 crore. This project will be fully funded by the Railways.”

This is a boost to software professional travelling from the city to the IT corridor as it means increased frequency of suburban trains.

While Metro construction will take until 2020, techies have come to rely on suburban trains to get to work.

Metro trains coming from Silk Board to K.R. Puram (Phase 2A) will connect with Baiyappanahalli depot and commuters can switch to the Phase-1 extension plying to Whitefield as well.

These junctions become even more crucial, as inter-modal connectivity between the corresponding Railway stations at Baiyappanahalli and KR Puram, must be bridged.

This is the first time that the two transport departments have quickly resolved the exchanging of land.