Satellite Town Ring Roads notified

Satellite Town Ring Roads notified

Staff Reporter

Bangaloreans can escape the crush of the city and stay connected

# About 364 km will be developed under four packages
# 2,600 acres of land will be acquired for the project

BANGALORE: Tired of the traffic snarls and the rising housing cost in Bangalore city? You can soon plan to relocate to nearby towns where the pressure on land is less and amid promises of improved connectivity.

The Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) will develop Satellite Towns Ring Road (STRR), which will connect the satellite towns of Doddaballapur, Devanahalli, Hoskote, Anekal, Kanakapura, Ramanagaram and Magadi with each other and also to the Bangalore International Airport at Devanahalli.

The State Government on Tuesday issued a notification for the development of the STRR. It will be implemented under Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer basis, the lease period would be for a period of 30 years.

A total of 364.5 km will be developed under four packages of the STRR. Not only will these towns be well connected, but also each of them will boast of ring roads that will decongest the respective towns.

"Though the towns are smaller in size, we are providing rings roads for the town to decongest traffic," said BMRDA Metropolitan Commissioner Sudhir Krishna told presspersons on Tuesday.

Mr. Krishna said that 2,600 acres of land would be acquired for the project, and the State Government had kept aside Rs. 400 crore to fund the acquisition cost. While the STRR would be a tolled road, non-toll sections would also be provided, he added.

He said: "The survey work for these projects has been completed and land acquisition process has been initiated. We have a vision of converting these roads to eight-lane but we will begin with either four or six lane. The traffic estimation also needs to be done."

The BMRDA and the Public Works Department will jointly undertake techno economic feasibility report to analyse viability gap of the project, including the cost of acquisition.

An amount of Rs. 100 crore for each package has been provided to BMRDA during the financial year 2007-2008 as seed capital to meet the cost of land acquisition and other related expenditure.