Bengaluru's Peripheral Ring Road gets green light, well almost

Peripheral Ring Road, the proposed eight-lane bypass that will link Tumakuru Road and Hosur Road, is set to take off after being on the drawing board for years.

Put on the back burner for over a decade due to land acquisition hurdles and a funding shortage, the project recently sprang back to life after the Supreme Court ordered the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to go ahead with acquiring land for the PRR.

The state government told the court it’s “very keen on facilitating the early execution of the PRR” and held two back-to-back meetings to finalise the technical details and tenders for the project.

But given the massive cost of the project — Rs 21,091 crore as per the latest estimate — both the government and the BDA have decided to construct the road under a public-private partnership (PPP). The contractor(s) is expected to be hired on the design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis.

Assisted by experts from iDeCK, the BDA has prepared a fresh tender document for the project and is waiting for the government’s approval. Infrastructure Development Corporation (Karnataka), or iDeCK, is a joint venture between the state, IDFC and HDFC.

“The tender document has been prepared with a special focus on the financial aspects because the contractor has to fund the entire project,” a senior BDA official said. The government may allow the contractor to collect toll for 30-50 years, the official added.

A top-level official in the BDA said that the state cabinet would likely approve the project in a few weeks following the court’s green signal.

BDA Chairperson and Yelahanka MLA, S R Vishwanath, said the cabinet had discussed the project about a month ago but no decision was taken because of a lack of clarity over land acquisition as the matter was pending in court. Now that the Supreme Court has given the green signal, global tenders will be invited once the cabinet approves the project, he added.

Once completed, the PRR will be 73 km long, up from the previous estimate of 65 km. It will link the northeastern, eastern and southeastern parts of Bengaluru. Together with NICE Road, which links Tumakuru Road and Hosur Road via the city’s northwestern, western and southwestern areas, Bengaluru will have a 116-km-long bypass on its periphery.

When the BDA proposed the PRR way back in 2007, it had notified 1,810 acres of land but subsequent changes in the alignment and design have jacked up the land requirement by another 750 acres.

According to a senior BDA official, additional land was required to provide facilities such as toll plazas and restrooms along the way.

The high court had earlier asked the BDA to go ahead with the project by using the land already notified and acquire the additional land later. This was based on the assumption that the project would be fully funded by the exchequer. But now that the project will be taken under PPP, the additional land would have to be acquired at the beginning itself, the official explained.

The BDA has also changed the design to integrate the PRR with NICE Road, increasing the length from 65 km to 73 km, a source said.

The PRR will have helipads for air ambulances and EV charging ports among other facilities. It will be signal-free and will have several cloverleaves consisting of underpasses and flyovers at various junctions, a senior BDA engineer said.

The PPP will extract a huge environmental cost. As per the initial Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), nearly 33,000 trees will have to be removed. But with changes in design and additional land requirements, another 5,000 trees will also go, a BDA official said. The BDA has applied for a fresh EIA.

When the project was first proposed 15 years ago, it was to cost Rs 3,000 crore. But the long delay in construction has resulted in massive cost overruns. As per the latest estimate, land acquisition will alone cost Rs 15,475 crore while the entire project cost has been pegged at Rs 21,091 crore.

The project cost nearly doubled in just about a year, between October 2019 and December 2020. “The land acquisition cost rises every year because we will have to pay a 12% interest to landowners. The guidance value of properties has also risen,” the official said.

While some European companies and an Israeli firm have shown interest in building the PRR, officials aren’t sure if they would find a suitable contractor given the project’s sheer scale and the funds required.

“If there are no suitable bidders, the government will consider viability gap funding. The BDA may also raise funds through an auction and other possible avenues,” the government stated in its affidavit to the court.