November 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened Bengaluru Metro’s Pink Line stretch from Kalena Agrahara to Tavarekere and launched projects worth over ₹15,600 crore in Karnataka on Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office said. The list includes India’s largest underground LPG storage cavern, at Mangaluru, power lines to carry 4.5 GW of renewable energy, and a new Bengaluru–Mangaluru–Madgaon Vande Bharat Express. In Mysuru, he opened COSMOS-Mysuru, India’s first planetarium with an LED dome.
Key highlights
- Metro: Pink Line stretch from Kalena Agrahara to Tavarekere, built at about ₹3,470 crore; Namma Metro now runs over 100 km.
- Power: transmission schemes worth over ₹10,000 crore to evacuate renewable power from Koppal, Gadag, Bidar, Davanagere, Chitradurga and Ballari.
- Fuel: India’s largest underground LPG storage cavern at Mangaluru, with 80,000 tonnes of capacity, built at over ₹850 crore.
- Rail: four Amrit Bharat stations, a fully electrified Bengaluru–Mangaluru route and a new Vande Bharat train to Goa.
- Science: COSMOS-Mysuru, built by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, with a 15-metre dome of about 6,150 LED panels.
The main projects
| Project | Cost | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Bengaluru Metro Pink Line, Kalena Agrahara–Tavarekere | About ₹3,470 crore | Inaugurated |
| Renewable energy transmission, Koppal-II and Gadag-II (Phase II), about 2 GW | About ₹4,450 crore | Inaugurated |
| Solar energy zone transmission, Bidar, 2.5 GW | About ₹1,370 crore | Inaugurated |
| Transmission for Davanagere/Chitradurga and Ballari renewable zones | Over ₹3,450 crore | Foundation stone |
| Transmission strengthening, Davanagere and Ballari | Over ₹1,100 crore | Foundation stone |
| Underground LPG storage cavern, Mangaluru (80,000 tonnes) | Over ₹850 crore | Dedicated to the nation |
| MRPL Devangonthi Marketing Terminal, Bengaluru | ₹330 crore | Dedicated to the nation |
| GAIL compressed biogas plant, Haralakunte, Bengaluru | Not stated | Foundation stone |
Metro and rail
The Prime Minister said Namma Metro has grown from about 17 km in 2014 to over 100 km, making Bengaluru the third Indian city to cross 100 km after the Delhi-NCR and Mumbai regions. The railway projects include the redeveloped Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Sakleshpur and Subrahmanya Road stations, the 45 km Bagalkot–Wandal doubling on the Gadag–Hotgi line, and the electrification of the 55 km Sakleshpur–Subrahmanya Road ghat section, which completes electrification of the Bengaluru–Mangaluru route. The new Vande Bharat Express will stop at places including Hassan, Mangaluru, Udupi, Murdeshwar, Gokarna and Karwar before Madgaon.
Energy and waste
The Mangaluru cavern comes with a 9.4 km pipeline from New Mangalore Port to the main terminal. GAIL’s planned biogas plant will process about 300 tonnes of municipal solid waste a day to produce about 12.6 tonnes of compressed biogas, according to the release.
India’s first LED-dome planetarium
COSMOS-Mysuru is on the University of Mysore campus at the foot of Chamundi Hills. Its 15-metre tilted dome has around 6,150 panels with 4.2 crore individual LEDs. Unlike a conventional planetarium, which projects images on a passive dome, the panels can be controlled in real time. Shows will run in Kannada, English and Hindi, and the centre includes exhibition halls, a museum, a lecture hall and a training centre. “The new COSMOS Planetarium in Mysuru brings the wonders of the universe closer to young minds,” the Prime Minister said.
Our calculation
| Question | Answer | How we got it |
|---|---|---|
| Share of the package going to power transmission | About two-thirds | ₹10,370 crore of ₹15,600 crore |
| Renewable capacity served by the inaugurated lines | 4.5 GW | 2 GW (Koppal, Gadag) + 2.5 GW (Bidar) |
| LEDs per dome panel | About 6,800 | 4.2 crore ÷ 6,150 |
| Growth of Namma Metro since 2014 | About six times | 17 km to over 100 km |
What it means for India
The package is mainly about power. About two-thirds of its value goes to transmission lines that connect Karnataka’s renewable energy zones in Koppal, Gadag, Bidar, Ballari, Davanagere and Chitradurga to the grid, which matters as India’s renewable capacity passes 300 GW, the figure the Prime Minister cited. For Bengaluru commuters, the Pink Line stretch extends a network that has grown about six-fold since 2014. The LPG cavern adds 80,000 tonnes of storage on the west coast, linked by pipeline to New Mangalore Port.
What to watch
- Ridership on the new Pink Line stretch.
- Completion of the Davanagere, Chitradurga and Ballari transmission schemes.
- The start of shows and training programmes at COSMOS-Mysuru.
A Namma Metro Pink Line train in Bengaluru, November 2026. Image: Sameer2905, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Photo source · Licence
Sources
- PIB (Prime Minister’s Office): PM to visit Karnataka and Gujarat on 13–14 November
- Prime Minister’s Office: PM inaugurates and lays the foundation stone of projects worth over ₹15,600 crore in Bengaluru
- Prime Minister’s Office: PM inaugurates COSMOS-Mysuru Planetarium
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