Modi flags off Bengaluru's Pink Line and rides with Shivakumar; ₹15,600 crore package of power lines, LPG cavern, Vande Bharat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first elevated section of Bengaluru’s Namma Metro Pink Line at S.G. Palya station on Friday afternoon, waving the green flag with Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and then handing it to Governor Sudha Yadav, according to reports. He bought a ticket at the counter and rode in a coach with Shivakumar and the Governor, with Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya aboard. The six elevated stations from Kalena Agrahara to S.G. Palya station (formerly Tavarekere) open to passengers on Saturday, November 14, 2026, according to reports, taking the city’s working metro past 100 km. The metro is one item in a package worth over ₹15,600 crore that the Prime Minister’s Office scheduled for a 1:15 pm event in the city: four solar and wind transmission schemes for Karnataka, an LPG storage cavern at Mangaluru, rail works and a new Vande Bharat Express to Goa. The project figures below are from the Office’s release of November 11, 2026; no text of the Prime Minister’s address had been issued when this report was filed, so no remark of his is quoted.

What the release lists

The metro item is the Pink Line section from Kalena Agrahara to Tavarekere, put at about ₹3,470 crore. The release had the Prime Minister riding from Tavarekere to IIM Bangalore station. Our earlier report has the station list and what is known about public service.

The biggest money is in power. The release lists four transmission schemes for Karnataka’s renewable energy zones:

• Koppal-II and Gadag-II, about ₹4,450 crore, evacuating about 2 GW, to be inaugurated.
• The Bidar Solar Energy Zone scheme with a pooling station, about ₹1,370 crore, 2.5 GW, to be inaugurated.
• Davanagere and Chitradurga with Ballari, over ₹3,450 crore, foundation stone.
• Strengthening at Davanagere and Ballari, over ₹1,100 crore, foundation stone.

Together these come to about ₹10,370 crore, roughly two-thirds of the package.

Bengaluru package, as listed by the Prime Minister's Office

• ₹10,370 cr four power transmission schemesKoppal-II, Bidar, Davanagere, Ballari
• ₹3,470 cr Pink Line sectionKalena Agrahara to Tavarekere
• ₹850 cr+ Mangaluru LPG cavern80,000 tonnes, underground

Petroleum, waste and rail

The release lists the rest of the 1:15 pm event, whose proceedings had not been reported when this was filed. At Mangaluru, Modi was to dedicate what the release calls India’s largest underground LPG storage cavern, costing over ₹850 crore with a capacity of 80,000 metric tonnes and a 9.4 km pipeline from New Mangalore Port. He also dedicates MRPL’s Devangonthi Marketing Terminal (₹330 crore) and lays the foundation stone of a GAIL compressed biogas plant at Haralakunte, which is to process about 300 tonnes of municipal waste a day into 12.6 tonnes of biogas.

On the railways, the release has him inaugurating four redeveloped Amrit Bharat stations at Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Sakleshpur and Subrahmanya Road, and dedicating the 45 km Bagalkot-Wandal doubling, part of the Gadag-Hotgi project. The 55 km Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road ghat electrification completes electrification of the Bengaluru-Mangaluru route. It also lists the flag-off of the Bengaluru-Mangaluru-Madgaon Vande Bharat Express, with Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw present. The 16-coach train serves Hassan, Sakleshpur, Mangaluru, Udupi, Murdeshwar, Gokarna and Karwar, and has Kavach collision-avoidance, automatic doors and bio-vacuum toilets, according to the railway briefing.

How we got here

The visit was announced on November 11, 2026, as a two-day tour of Karnataka and Gujarat. On Thursday Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said the state would welcome the Prime Minister and raise its demands, including drought relief. Modi landed at HAL Airport on Friday morning and first attended the Prashanti Kutiram jubilee. Our morning preview lists the full schedule.

Why it matters

For commuters in South Bengaluru, the Pink Line adds a direct metro link to the IIMB and Jayadeva Hospital area. For the coast, finished electrification and a Vande Bharat change the Bengaluru-Mangaluru journey. For the power sector, the two schemes being inaugurated add about 4.5 GW of evacuation capacity for solar and wind in Koppal, Gadag and Bidar, which is what lets that generation reach the grid. For the city, the biogas plant is aimed at the garbage problem GAIL itself describes as large.

Reactions

The state government’s view so far is Shivakumar’s from Thursday: respect for the office, and a list of demands. No opposition response to the package had been issued when this was filed. Shivakumar has also been pressing the Centre on the Supreme Court appeal over the state’s SC/ST quota.

What happens next

At about 3:30 pm Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the COSMOS-Mysuru planetarium, which the release calls India’s first LED dome planetarium: a 15-metre tilted dome with about 6,150 LED panels, built by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics on the University of Mysore campus, with shows in Kannada, English and Hindi. On Saturday, November 14, 2026, he travels to Gujarat. According to reports, the Pink Line opens to passengers the same day; the metro operator’s notice is the one to check.