Tejasvi Surya pushes for timely delivery of Metro rakes for Bengaluru’s Yellow Line

Surya also inaugurated the domestic production of Metro coaches at the Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd in Kolkata, during which he also reviewed the progress of manufacturing of Metro coaches.

The coaches for Bengaluru Metro are being manufactured by Chinese firm CRRC Nanjing Puzhen Co Ltd along with their domestic partners Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd. For the Yellow Line in particular, the CRRC will manufacture and dispatch two rakes (Metro trains) while five more will be made by Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd.

While the initial deadline was to start the Yellow Line services early 2024 (February), the availability of rolling stock and the Train Control Management System (TCMS) software is likely to push the deadline further.

According to Surya, the CRRC agreed to deliver two trains before January but they expressed concerns that the TCMS software would be delivered only in June 2024.

However, with budgetary provisions and technical specification changes, the CRRC officials agreed to deliver the beta version of the TCMS software in January 2024.

Taking it to X, Surya tweeted, “The team at Titagarh committed to do everything to deliver the rolling stock on time. The biggest surprise though was the TCMS software (Melco). CRRC officials expressed concerns that Melco would deliver the software only in June 2024. This would completely fail the February 2024 deadline.”

He added, “To address this, we decided that senior leadership at BMRCL would hold discussions with both CRRC and Melco to ensure timely delivery of the software. Pursuant to these meetings, the officials informed me that with a few technical specification changes and budgetary provisions, Melco has agreed to deliver the beta version of the TCMS software in January 2024, enabling testing and integration.”

Meanwhile, a team of senior officials of the BMRCL headed by Dhoke, visited Beijing to review the delivery of rolling stocks by the CRRC.

Surya’s visit follows the inspection he conducted of the Yellow Line on October 4. While efforts are being made for the timely completion of the Yellow Line, the rolling stock issues would render it difficult for the BMRCL to keep up to its February 2024 target.