Namma Metro Blue Line: Route, Stations & Airport Timeline

Bengaluru's Blue Line has been the city's most-watched metro corridor for years, and 2026 has brought both progress and fresh disappointment for commuters and homebuyers along the route. The line runs 58.19 km from Central Silk Board to Kempegowda International Airport, split into two phases that together will add 29 stations to the network. Phase 2A covers Central Silk Board to Krishnarajapura across 13 stations, while Phase 2B extends from Krishnarajapura all the way to the airport with 16 stations, making this the longest single corridor Namma Metro has attempted.

Phase 2A construction began in August 2021 and covers the Outer Ring Road stretch through Kadubeesanahalli, Bellandur, HSR Layout, Marathahalli and Doddanekundi before terminating at KR Puram, where it will interchange with the Purple Line. This is the segment IT commuters have waited longest for, since it runs directly along the ORR tech corridor. Phase 2B, where construction started in February 2022, pushes north through Kalyan Nagar, HBR Layout, Kasturi Nagar, Horamavu, Veerannapalya, Hebbal, Yelahanka and Bagalur Cross before reaching the airport via the new Airport City (KIA West) station.

The bad news for anyone counting down to opening day: the timeline has slipped again. BMRCL had targeted a 2026 commercial launch for Phase 2A, with trial runs between KR Pura and HSR Layout originally planned by October. A senior BMRCL official said the agency was continuing to work towards the trial-run milestone but acknowledged that the commercial launch would have to be deferred, with sources indicating operations are now likely to be pushed to early 2027 and could even be delayed until the middle of the year. Phase 2B, the longer and more complex airport-linked section, has been pushed further out to around March 2028.

What's causing the holdup? Pending civil works remain scattered across multiple sites. At Iblur, station construction began late because of a high-pressure GAIL gas pipeline, water lines and other underground utilities that had to be cleared first. At Central Silk Board, delays in obtaining permissions and clearing sites affected viaduct construction, and a crucial travellator linking the Blue Line station to the operational Yellow Line station is still at the tendering stage. Connectivity to the Byappanahalli depot, essential for train operations and maintenance, is also among the pending items. Design coordination with the proposed Sarjapur-Hebbal Metro corridor has added further delay.

For homebuyers, the near-term picture along the ORR belt is still one of steady, if slower-than-promised, progress. Once operational, the Blue Line will directly serve dense residential and office clusters in Bellandur, HSR Layout, Marathahalli and Doddanekundi, cutting a currently congested surface commute down to a fixed-time metro ride. Property rates in Mahadevpura and along the Phase 2A stretch have shown a steady increase over the past five years, reflecting anticipatory demand even before a single train has run. The airport leg via Hebbal and Yelahanka will eventually give North Bangalore residential markets a direct rail link to KIAL Terminals, a connectivity upgrade that has already been factored into pricing in micro-markets like Yelahanka and Devanahalli.

For SOBHA homebuyers specifically, the corridor matters most where it overlaps with the developer's East Bangalore footprint — the ORR-Bellandur-Panathur belt and the broader Hoskote growth corridor that feeds into it via Whitefield. A functioning Blue Line, even on a delayed schedule, adds a rail-based alternative to the ORR's notorious traffic, which is one of the biggest daily pain points for anyone commuting to the Bellandur-Marathahalli IT cluster from newer residential zones further east.

The practical takeaway: don't buy on the promise of a specific opening date. BMRCL's own history on this line — and on Bengaluru metro projects generally — shows dates get revised more often than they're met. Treat the Blue Line as a multi-year infrastructure story that will play out through 2027 and likely into 2028 for the full airport link, and evaluate any property purchase near the corridor on today's connectivity and pricing, with the metro as a genuine but not immediate upside.