The ambitious Gulbarga Ring Road Project, a major infrastructure project for the fast growing city, is back to square one. The uncertainty over the change of alignment of the ring road has become a stumbling block in the implementation of the already much delayed project.
   The execution of the second stage of the eight km long ring road on Jewargi-Afzalpur-Aland sector has come to a grinding halt following a direction from Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to Deputy Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey, who is also the Chairman of the Gulbarga Urban Development Authority (GUDA), to review the alignment of the ring road. The instruction has come at a time when the Karnataka Road Development Corporation (KRDC), ring road executing agency, has finalised the tender and work order was about to be issued.
   Three MLAs Chandrashekhar Patil Rewur (Gulbarga), Sunil Valyapure (Shahabad) and M Y Patil (Afzalpur ) had recently made a joint representation to the chief minister urging him to change the alignment of the ring road which passes through areas of the three constituencies.
   The representation has surprised one and all as everything had been finalised on the project as per the earlier commitment and provisions of the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of Gulbarga City prepared by GUDA and duly approved by the state government. Now, the ball is in the GUDA’s court which is required to review the alignment and take a final decision.
   The DC told Deccan Herald that the matter will be placed before the GUDA meeting to be held in June for a final decision. He said, any necessity for raising the limit of Gulbarga urban area could be considered during the CDP revision which is due next year.
   The execution of the second stage of the ring road has already been delayed by about two years. The tender finalised an year ago had to be cancelled following indecisiveness of the government.
   Though subsequently final decision was taken only to be reviewed now again.
   As per the CDP, there is no scope for taking up the ring road beyond the area specified for the purpose. For the second stage of the ring road which starts from Ram Mandir Junction, 50 acres of land has been acquired and the same has been handed over to KRDCL in January 2006. The entire stretch has remained free from any structure as the GUDA has not approved any layout interfering in the area earmarked for the ring road.
   The total length of the 150 ft wide four lane ring road is 22.5 km, out of which 14.5 km has already been completed in all respects at a cost of Rs 22.5 crore. The second stage for 8 km is estimated to cost Rs 29 cr.
   The entire cost is borne by the state government and the urban local bodies such as Mahanagara Palike and GUDA have been spared from monetary contributions. Two railway over bridges (ROB) are to be constructed on the ring road. The ROB work at Naganahalli on Ram Mandir-Shahabad Junctions has already started at a cost of Rs 9.5 cr. The work on the ROB on Afzalpur Road Junction has to be put on hold due to uncertainty over road alignment. The ring road project was started in 2002-03 and it should have been completed a couple of years back. It is feared that the project would suffer an indefinite delay if the alignment is changed as it would take its own time to decide the new alignment, acquire necessary land, etc; And even if all these formalities are completed, there would be a major legal hurdle as the CDP does not permit construction of ring road in an unspecified area.