Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first stretch of Bengaluru's Pink Line on Friday afternoon, then did something prime ministers rarely do. He bought a ticket.
So did Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, according to the Press Trust of India. Separate tickets, same counter. The two then rode the train together with Governor Sudha Yadav, MP Tejasvi Surya and minister K B Gowda, and Shivakumar spent part of the trip explaining the corridor's double-decker design, where a road flyover and the metro track sit on one set of pillars.
The stretch is 7.5 km, runs from Kalena Agrahara to Tavarekere along Bannerghatta Road, and is entirely elevated. Six stations, among them Hulimavu, IIM Bengaluru, JP Nagar 4th Phase and Jayadeva Hospital. The official statement puts the cost at around ₹3,470 crore.
Five BEML trains will run it. Four work at a time while the fifth waits as a spare, and at peak hours a train should turn up every eight minutes. Platform screen doors, the glass barriers between passenger and track, appear here for the first time anywhere on Namma Metro.
Jayadeva Hospital is the station to watch. The Yellow Line to Electronic City meets the Pink Line there, which means someone coming up from HSR Layout can change trains and keep going toward Bannerghatta Road. Reports say there is no separate interchange charge. The fare is worked out on the total distance travelled.
Expect to pay between ₹10 and ₹30 on the new section. You can buy a ticket on the Namma Metro app, through BMRCL's WhatsApp number, at a counter, or tap in with a smart card or NCMC. QR tickets come with a 5 per cent discount.
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation says it is adding five feeder routes with 30 buses and roughly 415 trips a day, pointed at Uttarahalli, BTM Layout, Arekere, Begur Lake and similar pockets. At peak, a bus every ten minutes or so.
With the new section the network moves from 96.1 km to 103.6 km, which pushes it beyond 100 km for the first time. Modi mentioned it on the platform, telling Shivakumar that Bengaluru keeps scoring centuries. ANI described the city as joining the 100-km club after Delhi and Mumbai.
Still, not everyone is cheering. The Hindu ran a piece headlined "Mind the gap" on the partial opening, and the complaint is easy to follow. The full Pink Line is 21.25 km with 18 stations. Twelve of those are underground, between Dairy Circle and Nagawara, and they are the ones that would carry riders through MG Road and Cantonment Railway Station toward the north. They are still being tested. May 2027 is the target.
Until then this is a southern spur that stops short of the centre. Useful for people in Hulimavu or JP Nagar. Less so for anyone who needs to get to MG Road.
The Vande Bharat came first. The Bengaluru-Mangaluru-Madgaon Express runs from Yesvantpur to Goa in about 13 hours, calling at Hassan, Sakleshpur, Mangaluru, Udupi, Murdeshwar, Gokarna and Karwar on the way.
Then the rest of the ₹15,600 crore package. The 45-km Bagalkot-Wandal doubling section of the Gadag-Hotgi line was dedicated to the nation, four redeveloped railway stations were opened, and a ₹4,450 crore transmission scheme meant to evacuate 2 GW of green power from Koppal and Gadag was launched. Earlier Modi attended the Prashanti Kutiram golden jubilee in Bengaluru, and he later moved on to a planetarium event in Mysuru. Some Bengaluru schools closed for the visit and traffic police published diversions.
Shivakumar gave the Prime Minister a memorandum with six demands. A fairer Centre-State split on metro financing, with shared responsibility for operating losses and currency risk. Permission for double-decker road and metro structures, with Karnataka ready to pay the extra. Early approval for the Sarjapur-Hebbal Red Line under Phase 3A. ₹22,400.58 crore in NDRF drought assistance. A sugarcane price of ₹5,500 a tonne against the 2026-27 FRP of ₹3,650. A fresh look at the Western Ghats eco-sensitive area notification.
Congress rules Karnataka and the BJP leads the Centre, and funding has been a sore point between them. The Organiser reported that Modi rejected the charge that the state is treated unfairly.
Gates open at 6 am on 14 November. The first people to feel the difference will be those living around Hulimavu and JP Nagar who work near the IIM Bengaluru campus or Jayadeva.
