Just 3-year guarantee for elevated corridor

The controversial elevated corridor project will come with a guarantee of only three years, beyond which the state government has to fund the repairs and maintenance of the structure.

Sources in the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) told DH that out of the three financial models that were proposed, the KRDCL has favoured the use of public funds under the engineering, procurement contract (EPC).

According to experts, the KRDCL’s choice would mean that the elevated corridor would turn out to be just another flyover requiring huge amounts of public money for its upkeep.

Officials said the other two methods of funding the project involved levying of a toll on users for a prescribed period of time.

Shivakumar BS, Managing Director, KRDCL, said, “We will make use of the public money for executing the entire project as this will result in no toll on the elevated roads.”

Giving details on the nature of the financial proposal, KS Krishna Reddy, Secretary, PWD, said the “financial model facilitates the bidder to construct the elevated corridor on our investment”.

“The contractor can change the structural design of the bridge apart from the height, width, quality and curve junctions of the road. Following the construction, it will have the Defect Liability Period (DLP) or in common words the guarantee period of three years.”

Earlier, in its Detailed Project Report (DPR), the KRDCL had proposed three financial models: Public Funds under EPC, Private Public Partnership (PPP) and PPP plus Viability Gap Funding (VGF) toll for the construction of the corridor. However, according to the KRDCL, both the second and third proposals were found to be unfeasible.