It's been a long wait for commuters to South Bengaluru, but on Saturday, it finally ended. President Pranab Mukherjee dedicated Phase 1 of Namma Metro at 6.20pm, which connects them to the Majestic interchange and then on to other parts of the city. It took 11 years, five chief ministers and an investment of Rs 14,200 crore to make the city get a Metro system that mitigates the city's traffic woes. Bengaluru is now only the country's second city, after New Delhi, to have a full-fledged Metro system.

As soon as the President waved the green flag at a grand event attended by over 4,000 people at the Vidhana Soudha, the inaugural train zoomed out of the Sampige Road station in Malleswaram to enter South Bengaluru covering a distance of 12km. This was the pending stretch of the network as other corridors have been commissioned in different phases over the past few years.

With commercial operations open to the public from 4pm on Sunday, commuters can travel across the city by switching trains at Asia's biggest metro station - the Kempegowda Majestic interchange. BMRCL, that already caters to about 2 lakh commuters daily, is expected to benefit 5 lakh commuters with the completion of this entire Phase 1 comprising of 42-km network.

Mukherjee said: "I am happy to be associated with this historic occasion for Bengaluru and dedicating Phase 1 to the people of Karnataka and Bengaluru. I am also happy that the Kochi Metro was also inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the same day. The first phase has already enriched our experience, thanks to engineers and workers of BMRCL who have achieved this engineering marvel. This learning will help in the execution of the 72-km Phase 2 of the project, which is under way. The credit also goes to the people of the Garden City who have shown discipline and hospitable behaviour."

He added, "We are behind in expanding railway projects unlike other countries. The population of India grew from 350 million to 1300 million since Independence and urban conglomeration gave birth to a new problem - urban mobility. We began late and started late but after the Delhi Metro, there has been no looking back. In another 10-15 years, a dozen cities will have Metro systems."

He also urged Bengalureans to maintain high levels of hospitality worthy of a metropolis.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah said, "Credit must go to BMRCL for undertaking the challenge to build the Metro under critical circumstances and through a throbbing city. But I also thank the citizens who have endured the construction. With completion of Phase two, 72 kms of Metro network will be added to the city and this could cater to 15 lakh commuters daily. However, without an integrated last-mile connectivity and feeder system for the Metro, it will not achieve its objective of mass transit."

'Focus now on Phase 2'

The focus is now Phase 2 for which work has already begun. This project is worth Rs 26,405 crore, of which the Centre's contribution is Rs 5190 crore. Minister for urban development M Venkaiah Naidu said the Centre has already released Rs 2160 crores of its allocation. "The BMRCL team has done an incredible job already but I hope they have learnt from their challenges and mistakes and will put it to use in implementing the second phase of the project. They must stick to their deadline of March 2020," he added.

He also said innovative funding is the way forward for such projects. "The Centre is going to release a new Metro policy which will highlight innovative and value capital models of financing Metro systems in states. Already, 370 km of Metro network is functional in India. With this new launch, another 517 km of Metro network is under construction and 522 km is under consideration," Naidu added.