Work on Peripheral Ring Road may start next month

Work on Peripheral Ring Road may start next month

Staff Reporter

First phase of project will link Tumkur, Old Madras and Hosur roads




Work only on the first stage will be taken up

Land acquisition process for the first phase has started


BANGALORE: Work on the first phase of the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR), aimed to decongest Bangalore, would start in mid-October after Stup Consultants, the agency chosen to chalk out the design, submitted the detailed project report, said M.K. Shankaralinge Gowda, Commissioner, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), here on Saturday.

Speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of the seminar on ‘Town planning at crossroads — crisis in urban development and governance’, the BDA Commissioner said the authority would take up work on the first phase only for now. The first phase itself was a huge project.

“We have taken up this part of the PRR because it will provide better access to the northern side of the city, especially since the international airport is coming up at Devanahalli,” he said. The first phase will link Tumkur, Old Madras and Hosur roads.
Compensation


The land acquisition process for the first phase had started and compensation packages were being worked out, he added.

Individuals owning lands in the green belt could be given financial compensation to make the concept of earmarking lands as green belt areas practical, Subhir Hari Singh, Commissioner for Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA), said.
Loss


Mr. Singh said when private lands were brought under green belt, owners of these lands stood to lose as prices would fall.

“Since the owners are deprived of whatever value they could get, we could think of alternatives to compensate for the loss,” Mr. Singh pointed out.

On the means through which this could be done, Mr. Singh said, “The Government could buy the land and turn it into a park. But this is a costly affair. Another alternative is that we could provide the landowners with Transferable Development Rights that they can trade or use elsewhere.”
Parks


Subhash Chandra, Secretary (Urban Development), said that instead of earmarking patches as green belt, development authorities could “pool in the lands marked as parks and open spaces and develop them in between two or three layouts.”
CBDs


Stating that development authorities must break away from the norm of only forming housing layouts, Mr. Chandra pointed out that it could plan for developing new central business districts (CBDs) around newly developing areas.

V.M. Hegde, former Director of Town Planning, said that about 25 sq km in Bangalore had witnessed unauthorised development.

“Master plans and development authority models have failed in implementation, enforcement and management,” he added.