L&T’s TBM Urja achieves third breakthrough of Bengaluru Pink Line

13 Jan 2023 CW Team

Larsen & Toubro’s Tunnel Boring Machine Urja (DZ670) achieved its third and final breakthrough at the Shadi Mahal TBM Retrieval Shaft on Bengaluru Metro‘s Pink Line (Reach 6), which is 21.386 km in length on 10 January 2023. This marks the 5th in a series of 6 tunnel breakthroughs planned for the 73.92 km Phase 2 project’s Package RT-03.

The Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) awarded the construction of the 2.884 km twin tunnels between Shivajinagar and Tannery Road in February 2019. After its second breakthrough at Pottery Town Station in June 2022, TBM Urja, a Ø6.67 m CRCHI slurry machine, began its final drive in July to build the 688.5 m northbound tunnel towards Shadi Mahal.

L&T’s official completion estimate for the tunnelling drive at the start was 170 days, but they easily beat it. However, even though the milestone was achieved, celebrations were muted due to a fatal construction accident on the 56 km Blue Line at HBR Layout earlier in the day. Urja (Machine DZ670) was the first of nine commissioned for Phase 2 in July 2020, and it started its first drive of 860m from Cantonment Station to Shivajinagar. Its sister machine TBM Vindhya (DZ671), started its third and final drive towards Shadi Mahal Shaft in September 2022 and is expected to finish in March.

According to BMRCL’s December newsletter, by November-end, 65.65 per cent of tunnelling work had been completed for Phase 2 (total scope: 21,041m), with a total of 17 out of 26 tunnel breakthroughs recorded 5 on Package RT-01 by Afcons, 3 on RT-02 by L&T, 5 on RT-03 by L&T, and 4 on RT-04 by ITD Cementation.

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