Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], August 10 : BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Sunday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the Yellow line metro inauguration and flagged "infrastructure deficit" in Bengaluru..
Noting the significance of the metro project, he called it a "festive day".
He told ANI, "Today is a very important day for Bengaluru and Bengaluru South in particular. It's a festive day. You are seeing thousands of people gathered here to welcome the Prime Minister. Bengaluru is suffering greatly from an infrastructure deficit. And this results in countless hours of traffic jams, troubling the people of Bengaluru."
The BJP MP added that the Yellow line metro will serve eight lakh people per day once it is fully operational, while the Phase-3 metro will serve 10 lakh people upon completion.
"This yellow line metro connects the residential part of the city to the most important ITBT hub, the Electronic City. Once completed and once fully operational, 8 lakh people will be able to travel every day. The Prime Minister is also laying the foundation stone today for another metro line project, Phase 3, that will also benefit 10 lakh people upon completion," he said.
The BJP MP said, "Both these projects, worth around 25,000 crore rupees, are exclusively being dedicated to the people of Bengaluru today by the Prime Minister. Cities are the future of our country's growth. The more we invest and the more we make our urban infrastructure strong, it will have a multiplied effect on the country's economy."
Tejasvi Surya also slammed the Congress government and recalled the stampede after Royal Challengers Bengaluru's (RCB) victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Surya said, "The state government was nowhere when the project was facing challenges...This is the state government, which even tried to steal credit from RCB for its hard-won IPL victory. The CM and the DCM posed with the trophy more emphatically than the players of the RCB, including Virat Kohli."
"And in their credit war, 11 innocents were killed in the stampede. They have a syndrome where they try to take credit for achievements for which they have no contribution. The DCM has called me a young boy in a hurry, in unnecessary urgency," he added.
Taking a jibe at Congress, Surya said, "I feel public infrastructure projects must be delivered in time. Gone are those days when Indira Gandhi would lay the foundation stone and Sonia Gandhi would come and inaugurate it. This is an era under Narendra Modi where we lay the foundation stone and we inaugurate the project. This is an era of fast-track governance, not slow-motion politics."
The Prime Minister will inaugurate today the Yellow line from RV Road (Ragigudda) to Bommasandra of the Bangalore Metro Phase-2 project, having a route length of over 19 km with 16 stations worth around Rs 7,160 crore.
With the opening of this yellow line, the operational metro network in Bengaluru will increase to over 96 km, serving a large population in the region.
The Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone of the Bangalore Metro Phase-3 project worth over Rs 15,610 crore. The total route length of the project will be more than 44 km with 31 elevated stations. This infrastructure project will address the growing transportation needs of the city, catering to residential, industrial, commercial and educational areas.
The Bengaluru metro is currently operated and maintained by Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), a joint venture of the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka.