The debt woes of IL&FS could have an impact on the pending construction work on various sections of Bangalore’s Namma Metro. A Rs 327-crore contract for construction of stations and viaducts on the Mysuru Road-Pattanagere stretch of the East-West corridor was bagged by the infrastructure company in April 2015.
Concerns are especially acute since IL&FS has missed repeated deadlines for completion of work on the Mysuru Road-Kengeri stretch. Work on this stretch was supposed to have been completed 27 months back and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) had, in fact, imposed a Rs 1 crore fine on the infrastructure major for the delay in completion.
IL&FS is not only executing work on the above stretch but is also responsible for construction work on the Silk Board-Bellandur stretch. According to BMRCL, the infrastructure major is also responsible for work on the two other packages of the 17-km ORR metro project which consists of the stretches between Bellandur-Doddanekkundi and Doddanekkundi-KR Puram.
With the company struggling to discharge its debt obligations, the metro authorities are worried that work would get stalled on these critical stretches. Further compounding the problem is the fact that authorities cannot take recourse to a new tendering round as the process would further delay execution of the much-needed metro rail project.