SPV to take up PRR

SPV to take up PRR
By Basavaraj Itnaal, DH News Service, Bangalore:
The proposal to build a 116-km peripheral ring road (PRR) around the city seems to have completed one full circle before it even started.

For, the project has come back to Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) after going to the Centre. During the President’s rule, the government had decided to transfer the work from BDA to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). But due to conditions unacceptable to the State Government, the project is back to BDA and the government is mulling over creating a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to take care of tender process.

PRR is proposed to be an expressway ring with a width of 100 metres and a length of 116 km beyond outer ring road (ORR). The BDA was initially supposed to take up the project at a cost of Rs 5002 crore. However, it was later decided to entrust the work to NHAI. NHAI proposed to make it a toll road and required BDA to notify, acquire and hand over the land for the work. NHAI had agreed to reimburse BDA the cost of land acquisition. The government issued necessary orders accepting these conditions.

According to government sources, differences arose between NHAI and the Government when the former said that it would only be able to take the northern loop of PRR and asked BDA to take up rest of the work.
After the Government accepted this, NHAI then said that it would build the road only with 60 metres width at its cost and if BDA wanted a 100 metre width, it had to pay for it.

Finally, the government has decided to entrust the work to BDA. Sources told Deccan Herald that in the next Cabinet meeting, a decision to set up an SPV would be taken. SPV would float global tenders for the work and carry out technical and financial evaluation of the bids. The detailed project report for the work is yet to be prepared, said sources.