Residents who were demanding a Metro station at Anchepalya (Srikantapura gram panchayat on Tumkur road) and staging protests for more than a year, have finally reached a truce with Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) on Monday (3rd August 2020) with BMRCL promising two access roads to nearby station and a stadium.
During a meeting with the residents and the BMRCL officials on Monday, it was decided that BMRCL will construct two roads in the Anchepalya vicinity (behind Kirloskar layout) that will connect them to the nearby Metro stations and also construct a stadium on a 29-gunta land.
Mukesh Gowda, who was at the forefront of the protests said, “The Metro officials told us that it was too late to change the design to include a new station as the works connecting the Nagasandra Metro station and BIEC were in their final stages. So, we requested them to create access roads for us to which they agreed. Though a portion of the access road is already in place, the road was in a poor condition while there were sites blocking the road. The officials promised to help us.”
Sources in the Metro said that the work was on and they were hopeful of completing it soon. The protest started when the Metro began construction of the stations on the 3.77 km Tumkur road stretch (Nagasandra to Bangalore International Exhibition Centre) in phase two.
For more than a year, the residents had pitched tents and had even stalled the Metro work. Yelahanka MLA SR Vishwanath told the media that constructing a new station would mean demolishing the already-constructed piers and it would cost around Rs 250 crore to the exchequer. Hence, the protestors agreed to plan B.