Plan to widen Mysore-Bangalore highway in limbo

Plan to widen Mysore-Bangalore highway in limbo
Saturday June 2 2007 00:00 IST

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BANGALORE: Nearly a year after the proposal was made to upgrade the Bangalore-Mysore State Highway-17 (SH-17) from the existing four lanes into six lanes, the State government seems to have totally forgotten the project that was aimed to counter the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Express Way, promoted by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE).

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy during his visit to Dubai in June 2006 had told this paper that Bangalore-Mysore road would be widened to ease traffic besides reducing travel time.

He had even said that “officials have been directed to expedite the land acquisition and complete the process to widen the SH-17.”

Following this, the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) had approved the project at its board meeting chaired by PWD Minister H D Revanna. Corporation’s managing director Ramesh Jhalki had said that they have commenced the work to survey land for the project. Now a year later, the KRDCL is yet to complete the survey. “The survey work is still in the initial stages,” Jhalki said, hinting that the project may be delayed further.

“Once the survey is completed, we can have a detailed project report (DPR) prepared to make estimated project cost before initiating the land acquisition process,” he said.

The KRDCL was planning to acquire a little over 100 acres for the project with an estimated acquisition cost of around Rs 500 crore. It was also planning to complete the project within two years from the day of commencing the actual ground work.

Meanwhile, the government which had earlier planned to construct flyovers across the five towns at Ramanagaram, Chennapatna, Maddur, Mandya and Srirangapatna to reduce land acquisition cost is said to have decided to have by-pass roads to these towns.