PRR re-alignment on fast track

PRR re-alignment on fast track

The peripheral ring road will make life easy for the suburban residents

Bosky Khanna. Bangalore

The most eagerly-awaited yet controversial Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) is now going to be re-aligned and may be put on fast track. This will help residents of many suburban areas avoid congested city roads.
The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is in talks with Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) to acquire a kilometre of land to complete the ring and connect the PRR to the existing 40.8 kms of NICE road. Apart from this, NICE is trying to barter with BDA and construct 19 kms of the road connecting Tumkur and Bellary to ensure unhindered connectivity to the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA).
The BDA had notified to construct 65-kms of the PRR under phase one connecting Tumkur Road (NH-4) to Hosur Road (NH-7) via Bellary Road (NH-7) and Old Madras Road (NH-4).
And in phase two, it was planned that a road spread across 51 kms connecting Hosur to Tumkur via Kanakapura road (NH-209), Mysore road and Magadi Road, will be constructed.
But now the BDA has decided that they will not go ahead with the road construction as planned in phase two as a 40.8 km stretch of NICE road already exists and also as land acquisition will be a problem. Thus the agency has decided to complete phase-1 and link it with the existing NICE road to make a complete ring.
For this re-aligned road, as per BDA's final notification in phase-1 issued earlier, the road would end at Madanayakanahalli village (towards Tumkur Road) and at Hebbagodi village (towards Hosur Road). As the roads in these villages were not connected to the NICE Road, the alignment has been changed. Now, they will lead to the NICE road at the villages of Madavara and Doddathogur.
Talking on the issue, BDA commissioner Siddhaiah told DNA, "The length of the entire stretch of road will be 64.289 kms. But for this we need to acquire a kilometre of land of from NICE, talks for which are on."
The proposal of re-aligning the road came from members of ABIDe and once NICE agrees, it will be sent to the board and government for clearance. However, highly placed sources in the BDA said that the BDA was also in talks with NICE asking them to show interest in the project and if all goes well, they will be allowed to construct the road