To make space for Metro, bus service

BENGALURU: Finally, the much-awaited 66km Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) project, connecting Hosur Road and Tumakuru Road, has got some real push . The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) on Sunday floated tender to get consultants on board to prepare a feasibility report and a detailed project report.The project, aimed at diverting heavy vehicles entering the city, will be an elevated corridor in its new avatar. BDA engineering member Shiva Kumar said having an elevated corridor will lead to multiple benefits. “From the commuter point of view, there’d be smooth transit with 20 lanes (10 above and 10 below). Also, less land will have to be acquired, thus reducing the project cost by about 40%,” he said, added, “We will open the technical proposals in the first week of November to finalise the bidders.”The project aims to provide seamless connectivity between Tumakuru and Hosur Road passing via Ballari Road and Old Madras Road. Since it’d be linked to the NICE corridor, a seamless drive around the city would become a reality.The project has been in cold storage for two decades owing to allocation of funds and land acquisition challenges. “The estimated cost is Rs 13,000 crore, of which Rs 9,000 crore is for construction and Rs 4,000 crore for land acquisition. If not elevated, the land acquisition cost itself would have scaled up to Rs 9,000 crore. While the state government will partly bear the land-acquisition cost, we are planning to share the remaining through transfer of development rights (TDR), premium floor area ratio (FAR) and deemed constructions. For the construction, we will raise loans from banks. The developer will collect fees from the road users up to a certain period,” said a senior official from BDA.BDA officials said the project will take at least three years to complete.The elevated PRR will provide space for a Metro corridor to run through the middle of the alignment. “With this, we will be integrating Metro corridor with the PRR, allowing Metro to spread its wings to the outskirts of the city. We will also provide dedicated lanes for bus services,” said a BDA official.