Namma Metro vs Real estate: D K Shivakumar, Patil to discuss prospect of Hebbal’s 45-acre land

Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and his cabinet colleague MB Patil, who is Minister for Large and Medium Industries, are scheduled to hold a crucial meeting on Friday to discuss the prospect of 45 acres of land in Hebbal.

While the prime piece of land is currently in the custody of the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), Namma Metro wants to acquire it for a fee as it is planning to build three metro stations and a depot at Hebbal.

As per Shivakumar's schedule, the much-awaited meeting will be held at the Vidhana Soudha. The discussion takes place even as both ministers are under severe pressure from the real estate lobby to set aside the land for private purposes.

Handing over the land for a public project will not cause monetary loss to the KIADB as Namma Metro has offered to pay Rs 12.10 crore per acre, which comes to about Rs 551.15 crore. It's also learnt the high-powered committee, headed by Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh, was also in favour of this.

For Namma Metro, the 45 acres are crucial as three metro lines will converge at Hebbal, which will soon be a major transport hub as a suburban railway station is also proposed at the location.

The three metro lines are: Phase II-B (Outer Ring Road to the airport), Phase III (JP Nagar 4th Phase to Kempapura) and Phase III-A (Hebbal to Sarjapur). As Phase III and Phase III-A metro lines will be terminating at Hebbal, Namma Metro officials are scouting for the Hebbal land, where it wants to build a depot for halting the metro coaches so that it can start and terminate the services at this point.

While the Phase II-B project is currently under construction, Phase III just received an approval from the Centre and tenders are likely to be called soon. The Phase III-A project is currently awaiting the approval of the Karnataka government as Namma Metro recently prepared the detailed project report.

Other than the depot, Namma Metro plans to use the space for creating multi-level car parking and multi modal traffic integration as the BMTC bus terminal is situated in the same area.

Around two decades ago, the KIADB had notified about 55 acres of land for establishing the Lake View Tourism Corporation. Although the privately run corporation had paid Rs 10 crore for the acquisition, the proposal never materialised due to changes in the government and modifications to the original plan. The land is in KIADB’s custody as the corporation did not reportedly honour its original agreement.