Little India MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station on the North East (NEL) and Downtown (DTL) lines. The station is located at the junction of Bukit Timah Road and Race Course Road, on the boundary of the planning areas of Kallang and Rochor, Singapore. The station serves the ethnic neighbourhood of Little India, and is within walking distances to key locations such as KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Tekka Market, and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) headquarters. Opening on 20 June 2003 as part of the NEL, it later became an interchange station with the DTL when Stage 2 of the line started operations on 27 December 2015. History North East line The station was first announced as "Kandang Kerbau" when the North East line stations were revealed on 6 March 1996. The announcement of the station was 'greatly welcomed' by the residents and shopkeepers in Little India, who hoped that the station will give the Little India district a 'new lease of life' with more developments around the station. Contract 706 for the design and construction of Kandang Kerbau station was awarded to a joint venture between Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Zublin AG at S$311.56 million (US$ million) in April 1997. The contract also includes the construction of the adjacent Farrer Park station. During the construction, on 7 October 1998, construction workers at the site unearthed human skeletons, alongside discoveries of gold, jewellery, coins and weapons such as machine guns and ammunition. Widely speculated to be massacred victims during the Japanese occupation, the exact origins of the remains remained unknown. To facilitate the construction, Buffalo Lane, which connects shoppers to the nearby Tekka Centre, was set to be closed. However, the Moulmein Tekka Residents' Committee was concerned that the closure of the road will create inconvenience and road congestion around the station site. Eventually, a metal decking on the road was constructed to allow the public to utilise the road to access Tekka Centre as construction works continued underneath the decking. Although a simple solution, the road decking was needed to be shifted around five times during the construction. As the deck took up a notable amount of space at the worksite, the construction schedule has to be reworked which cost the Land Transport Authority (LTA) about $1 million (US$ million). Another challenge faced was the construction of the underpass from the station