The MG Road metro station will soon have two restrooms – one near Anil Kumble Cirlce, and the other next to the station at the start of boulevard.Restrooms will be for three categories – men, women and disabled.

BMRC had initially said that the stations do not need restrooms as the time of journey is very short. "The decision to start restrooms was taken after continued demand of citizens," says Ravi Prakash, Manager PRO at BMRC. One restroom each is planned for Ulsoor and Swami Vivekananda Road stations, but tenders for these have not been finalised.

MG Road and Bayappanahalli stations will have coffee shops as well. BMRC (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation) floated tenders for coffee shops on April 4th. Four shops – two each on MG Road (one on Anil Kumble Circle end, other on Brigade Road end) and Bayappanahalli (one of OMR side, another on NGEF side) – will come up. 

Both restrooms and coffee shops will be open to general public in addition to Metro commuters. These structures will be outside, completely separated from the main Metro station.

There have been demands for restrooms in Metro stations for long. File Pic: Navya P K

Prakash says that the tenders for coffee shops will be awarded in 1-2 months. He says that BMRC is expecting major brands like Cafe Coffee Day to bid for the license to start coffee shops. Coffee shop will be a kiosk that serves coffee/tea, beverages and ready-to-eat bakery and confectionery of reputed brands. Rest of the area will be reserved for seating.

As per the bid document in BMRC website, only those who own/operate at least 25 coffee shops of a particular brand are eligible to apply. The bidder should have operated these shops for at least three financial years with average turnover of Rs 15 cr per year.

Tenders for coffee shops are initially for two years, and can be extended another two terms of two years each (another four years total). Only for Bayappanahalli station’s OMR side coffee shop, contract will not be renewed after two years.

In addition to a fixed one-time fee, licensees have to pay a Minimum Monthly Guarantee (MMG) amount to BMRC. The bidder who quotes the highest MMG will get the license.

BMRC can inspect the shops and give notice for any repairs if needed; the shops should also submit to BMRC reports on safety and hygiene of the shop twice a year. "Though BMRC will have overall control, operations will be completely outsourced. Same is the case for toilets – contractors will be free to decide the usage charges," says Prakash.

"Since the contract for restrooms is in PPP (Public Private Partnership) model, there is no question of us fixing rates. When the contractor runs the service, they have to recover revenue from it," says BMRC’s Chief PRO B L Y Chavan.

The restroom contracts are for eight years, for contractors to design, build, own, operate and transfer those. Restrooms are supposed to have high-end facilities and will sport advertisements. Only bidders with average annual turnover of Rs 20 cr for the last three years are being considered.

Feeder services break even, almost

When Metro started operating in October, Metro Feeder (MF) buses were not much in demand and the number of trips had to be cut down. BMTC’s Divisional Traffic Officer (DTO) B G Sampangi Rame Gowda says that routes had to be rationalised in November, but not after. Feeders had started with 1250 trips initially; now there are only 890 trips. "There are 60 feeder buses and we spend about Rs 6000-7000 for each bus daily. The total daily collection is Rs 3 – 3.5 lakhs, which almost covers the expenditure," says Gowda.

There are four feeder routes (MF-1, 2, 3 and 10) from MG Road, one from Trinity Circle (MF-4), two from Indira Nagar (MF-5), three from Swami Vivekananda road (MF-6, 11 and 11A), and two from Bayappanahalli station (MF-7 and 9).

For routes and timings of MF buses, check , and

There are also Big-10 buses that act as feeders for MG Road and Trinity Circle stations as these buses pass along the stations. MG Road station has three such routes – G-8 (Manekshaw Parade Ground to Nelamangala), G-9 (Manekshaw Ground to Yelahanka 5th phase) and G-11 (Manekshaw Ground to Bagalur). Trinity Circle station has one route – G-1 (Manekshaw Ground to Kadugodi Bus Station). For routes and other details of these buses check here.