After 517 days of drilling for the Bengaluru metro, tunnel boring machine (TBM) `Varada’ completed its job on Friday. It completed its second tunnel of 596 metres length to attain a breakthrough at the upcoming Langford metro station. It has been dismantled and taken off duty, while eight TBMs will continue work on the 13.8-km underground corridor for the Nagawara-Kalena Agrahara Line.

The drilling of the second leg, parallel to the first leg and in the same direction from Rashtriya Military School (Vellara Junction) to Langford, began on January 27.

Varada faced the hurdles of very hard rock and mixed face during its journey and emerged successful. It would be the first TBM to wind up its assigned work and leave the underground portion.

Varada, procured from Herrenknecht in Germany, had a rest period of over two months after completing one round and beginning the next. Afcons Infrastructure has been contracted with the job by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL). Fortunately, since the work was completely underground inside a tunnel, the rains that lashed Bengaluru did not impact the work, officials said.

While Urja and Vindhya have completed two tunnels, they are tunnelling a third leg too. Varada has only been planned for two tunnels. All the other TBMs are presently in different stages of tunnelling across Reach-6.

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