State passes expressway project to the Centre

State passes expressway project to the Centre
TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Bangalore: The Centre may now come to the rescue of state government on the proposed expressway to the international airport. A decision to hand over the project to the National Highways Authority of India to speed it up was taken by BMRDA, PWD and BBMP officials at a review meeting on Friday.
National Highway 7 (Bellary Road) will be the only road access to the new airport. The access-controlled 21.2-km expressway will not be ready before Dec. 2009.
The state government will send a request to the Union government to fund the project entirely by entrusting it to NHAI. Earlier, the Union government was asked to fund for the project in the form of viability gap funding.
“Objections to the alignment have been invited. A major objection filed by property owners is to denotify their properties. Public properties have to be acquired for the project. The applications are being scrutinised,” officials told The Times of India. Another request to the Centre will be to develop one of the ring roads — STRR, IRR, PRR and to realign, develop NH 207 to connect Bantwal in Mangalore to Tamil Nadu via Kolar which would act as an East-West corridor of the state.
CAUSES OF DELAY
l Initially, land losers raised a hue and cry over freezing of alignment for the project
l Road alignment changed four times which resulted in massive protests by residents Cops study access to Devanahalli
Bangalore: The police are looking at identifying civic agencies to construct underpasses throughout the stretch to the upcoming airport.
Technically, it takes about 35 minutes to travel from Hebbal flyover to the Devanahalli airport intersection without traffic hindrances.
On Friday, additional commissioner of police K C Ramamurthy and his team visited the route to figure out where traffic signals are needed.
The police have also identified sectors which need to be barricaded for pedestrian safety and smooth flow of traffic.