The 65-km Peripheral Ring Road is back on the government’s agenda. But before the Rs 5,800-crore project gets into construction mode, the BDA has to make that jump from the drawing board to the hugely problematic land acquisition process.
For years, the city had its central core wrapped in two concentric Inner and Outer Ring Roads. But the access-controlled, heavily tolled NICE road pulled only a half circle around the ORR.
The State Government now wants to complete that circle by resurrecting the much-awaited, much delayed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). But the challenge of a taxing, troublesome land acquisition process looms large.
At an estimated cost of a whopping Rs. 5,800 crore, the eight-lane, 65 km long PRR with 10 intersections will not come cheap. The government is confident of the funding part, taking the Central route to finance the project through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Yet, Bangalore Development Authority – the implementing agency –, will have a lot of work to do as it strives to get the land cleared for the Ring to take shape from Tumkur Road to Hosur Road, intersecting Doddaballapur Road, Bellary Road, Old Madras Road and Sarjapur Road.
BDA officials apparently understand the complexity of the problem. But they are hopeful the land-losers, mainly farmers, would accept the compensation package offered. In exchange for the land, the farmers are given the option to choose the land rate based on the area’s Guidance Value, 40 per cent of the developed land or Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) certificates.
Many farmers believe that “The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013” passed recently by the Parliament will help them get a better deal. But BDA clarifies that this legislation will not apply here as the acquisition process had begun much earlier. “Farmers should get the market rate for the land or 50’ X 50’ sites in developed layouts. We have already placed these demands before the government,” says Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, president of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS).
The agriculturists, he says, are prepared to part with their lands provided the compensation is proportionate to the area acquired. He explains, “If the requirement is for a 100 metre wide road, the farmers will give it. But if they make a road that is only 70 metres wide and use the remaining space for commercial exploitation, we cannot agree. The government should be ethical about it.” The land losers, he reiterates, should not feel cheated.
Reduction in road width
Intransigence in talks between the farmers and government had finally forced the BDA to reduce the road width from 100 mtr to 75 mtr. BDA Commissioner Sham Bhat asserts that the reduction was inevitable to make the project feasible. However, the draft Detailed Project Report (DPR) specifies 75 mtr as the Right of Way (ROW) but adds another 12.5 meters on either side of the road to make it 100 mtr.
Effectively, the thoroughway will be only on the eight lanes within the 75 metres. But the acquisition will be for 100 metres. The 12.5 metres, explains a BDA official, will be developed and offered to the land-loser. Whether the farmers are ready to accept this arrangement will be clear only after a meeting between the land-losers and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, scheduled after the Dasara festivities.
In cold storage for years, the project had hit headlines again in July this year. The Chief Minister himself had recalled that the then state government issued an order to acquire land for the project in 2005, but the court cancelled it in 2011. After the court’s decision was challenged in a higher court, the State got a direction in favour of land acquisition on July 15 this year. The government, he had said, would acquire 1,810 acres of land for the project.
It is estimated by KRRS and other sources that the PRR, covering 67 villages, will leave 214 farmers without any land, while over 1,500 agriculturists will have to part with portions of their land. Sangha activists say more than 8,000 farmers and their family members will be displaced and forced to look for alternative occupations. This figure, however, could not be verified.
Toll plaza issue
To be implemented on an Engineering Procurement Construction mode, the project could run into rough weather over the toll plaza proposal. The project papers do talk about installing such plazas at all entry and exit points. The farmers read this as a way to commercially exploit the road. Their argument is that the PRR should only be for connectivity and not become business centres.
But there was a BDA plan -- now put on the backburner --, to commercially exploit not just the land in close proximity to the road but an entire kilometre around it. As late as 2012, the Authority and government had a proposal to deem this area as a hi-tech zone. The idea was to develop the zone as a priority area for establishment of industries such as automobile, Information Technology and other allied sectors.
Land owners within this hi-tech zone would have had to pay hefty betterment charges and other taxes to convert their properties. This way, it was hoped, the government could recover part of the PRR cost. The big ticket idea was to facilitate a real estate boom around the PRR and carve out attractive land banks for industries. This way, it was expected, the property pressure on the city’s Central Business District and areas within the Inner and Outer Ring Roads would ease. Besides, the zone’s proximity to Tamil Nadu was seen as an added advantage for investing industries.
Hi-tech zone
The proposed zone offered another option, designed to attract investment from commercial builders and industries: A relaxation in the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for the entire 65-kilometre stretch. This vertical push was intended to propel further development of the surrounding areas. Yet, caught as they are in the land acquisition procedures for the PRR, BDA officials are not keen to talk about this proposal. In any case, the Revised Master Plan 2015 makes no mention of it. But it might figure in the draft of the next plan whenever that materialises.
Whatever be the future of this zone, there is no dispute that the growing city needs the PRR and very fast. Even after acquiring all the land required for the project, it would take another 36 months for completion. But that would be preceded by approvals from several agencies such as the railways, traffic police, transport department, and many other civic authorities. Here’s another rationale for the PRR’s relevance: Bangalore has expanded from 437 sq.kms. to 821 sq.kms. But the corresponding increase in road network has only been 11 per cent.
Consider these statistical pointers: In the five years between 2007 and 2012, the number of cars on Tumkur road alone alone has gone up from 11,457 to 17,834, a whopping 55.66 per cent increase. On Old Madras Road, the car traffic growth has been even higher in the same period, recorded at 64.61 per cent. But the PRR, which would eventually link Tumkur road to Hosur road, bypassing vast swathes of the City, will make a big difference to the truck traffic.
The number of trucks passing through Tumkur Road, Bellary road, Old Madras Road and Hosur road went up by 50.92 per cent, 16.60 per cent, 35.50 per cent and 43.49 per cent respectively. Diverting these from the main roads entering the city will go a long way in decongesting the incoming traffic, believe the project planners.