Construction of the Freedom Park parking lot paused

BENGALURU: In central Bengaluru the thousand-slot underground parking lot which is coming up at the Freedom Park will be delayed by three months. As the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has been struggling to get rid of the rock at the parking lot, which was said to be opening in the month of March, might be opening only after the month of June. 

The rock area is considered to be around 50,000 cubic metres. The civic authorities said that, it is equal to removing around 6,500 truckloads (each of 20 tonne capacity) of rock. The BBMP engineers have claimed that only 3,500 cubic metres of the rock remain to be excavated and hope to finish the work by June.

“Workers, who were digging at the site, hit a hard rock. Since the building goes 12m underground, they have to excavate the rock and this is causing the delay. As of now, 60-70% of the work is over. The project is likely to be completed by June next year,” said KT Nagaraj, chief engineer, projects.

An executive from the company which won the contract said, “The BBMP conducted a survey of the area, and in the tender document said there was a 14,000 cubic metre rock at the site. However, when we started work, we realised there was a single sheet of rock of over 50,000 cubic metre. Since we didn’t get permission to blast the rock, the area being in the heart of the city, we are using a diamond-rope technique to excavate. We pour chemicals into holes in the rock, which then expands, causing it to break. This is an expensive and time-consuming process, but we have no alternative.”

The three-storey basement parking lot will have 500 slots for cars and 500 for two-wheelers. It was proposed 10 years ago as a solution for the parking problems that are being faced by commuters who visit the Majestic and Gandhinagar areas. The Rs 80-crore project literally has been put to a pause as soon as the construction work has began.