Bengaluru Metro funding has come under renewed scrutiny after Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar asked the Centre to assume a larger and fairer share of the cost of Namma Metro projects, speed up approvals and help manage financial risks. He made the demands in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the elevated section of the Pink Line.
Shivakumar said Metro projects were formally structured as a 50:50 partnership between the Centre and states, but the actual burden on Karnataka was substantially higher. Ahead of the inauguration, the Karnataka government had claimed that the state had borne 84% of Namma Metro’s project cost. The claim led to a political dispute, with BJP functionaries rejecting the assessment and saying the Centre had provided substantial financial support.
The chief minister said Bengaluru’s traffic problems made Metro expansion a critical priority and argued that the financing model needed to reflect the conditions faced by individual cities. He called for Metro projects to be financed through national banks and other financial institutions at lower interest rates, citing the high cost of foreign borrowings.
He also sought a formal mechanism for the Centre and states to share operational cash losses and foreign exchange risks arising from external loans. These demands would alter how the financial risks of large urban rail projects are divided between the two levels of government, although no revised mechanism was announced in the report.
Shivakumar separately asked for faster central clearances for proposed Metro projects, particularly the Red Line connecting Sarjapur and Hebbal. He said the project had been awaiting central approval for more than two years and called for time-bound decisions, regular reviews under the PRAGATI mechanism and direct intervention by the Prime Minister to resolve delays.
The chief minister also argued that project costs should be assessed using the actual conditions in each city rather than uniform national averages. According to his account, detailed project reports were often two to three years old by the time they received central approval. He proposed that cost increases caused by such delays should be shared by the Centre and the state.
The demands come as Bengaluru seeks to expand its Metro network to address congestion and improve mass transit capacity. Shivakumar proposed a dedicated national technical institution for Metro projects to provide technical guidance, encourage advanced technologies and speed up decision-making. The next steps on the requested funding, risk-sharing and approval mechanisms were not specified in the report.
