Elevated corridor project for Bengaluru

• The total length of the first phase corridor is 102.04 km and it is estimated to cost Rs 25,495 crore, he said, adding that 92 acres of land was required for the project.
• The project would be taken up under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has decided to take up an elevated corridor project to decongest city roads and it would be implemented from January 2019 at an estimated cost of about Rs 25,495 crore, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said on Thursday. The project is also aimed at providing effective modes of transportation, minimising maintenance cost of vehicles, and ensuring road safety along with limiting carbon emission, he said.

"Due to traffic congestion on city roads, we have decided to go ahead with construction of corridors to ease traffic in North-South, East-West and central parts of the city," Kumaraswamy told reporters here.

The total length of the first phase corridor is 102.04 km and it is estimated to cost Rs 25,495 crore, he said, adding that 92 acres of land was required for the project. The project would be taken up under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode, he said.Officials had been instructed to ensure there were no legal hurdles and that complete transparency was maintained, Kumaraswamy said.

The government has decided to kickstart the project in January 2019 and complete it by 2021.Kumaraswamy had announced in his budget speech about undertaking the construction of an elevated corridor and allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the present year.

The Chief Minister held a meeting of officials of various departments on Thursday, where he also examined the presentation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) regarding elevated corridors project. He said with a view to ensuring that public property was not affected, it had been decided to go in for four-lane roads at places where it may affect people and six-lane in the remaining places. Kumaraswamy said.

According to estimates, 3,700 trees might have to be felled for the project and steps would be taken towards translocating trees wherever possible and planting of new trees in about 100 acres at various places in the city. "There will be interlink between Corridor and Metro line, and at places double-decker model is likely to be adopted for this purpose," he added.

In another move to decongest city roads, the state cabinet had recently decided to bear the land acquisition cost of about Rs 4,500 crore for the 65-km peripheral ring road, estimated to come up at a cost of about Rs 17,000 crore. "Despite efforts by various governments through various programmes, we have not been successful in providing all the basic necessities to the citizens of Bengaluru," Kumaraswamy said.

Pointing out that there was a section among citizens who are opposed to such infrastructure projects, Kumaraswamy asked them to take note of situations such as vehicles moving bumper to bumper on city roads and speed limited to 15-20 km per hour leading to wasting of time in traffic.

"If there are any doubts, Vidhana Soudha's doors are always open. You can clear your doubts either by meeting me or the Chief Secretary. My priority is providing facilities to people of Bengaluru," he said, adding that environment-related concerns are being kept in mind while taking decisions.