Denotifying NH stretches in city: CM seeks legal opinion

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he has instructed officials to look into the Supreme Court judgement to find out a way to save the bars near highways.

While Siddaramaiah did not explain the steps being taken in this regard, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George said senior officials from the PWD, Excise and other departments have been instructed to look into the issue and come up with a legal opinion based on which a decision will be taken.

"NHAI is not maintaining any roads inside the city. We are doing it. Also, NHAI has given a clarification regarding entry and exit points of the highways. According to them, all highways end at the outer ring road in places like Hebbal, Krishnarajapuram and Goraguntepalya. There are no highways inside the city. But this has to be legally recognised," he said.

Around 3,500 bars in Karnataka, 683 of them in Bengaluru, have been either closed or forced to shut their liquor service as their licence was not renewed due to a Supreme Court judgement banning bars within 500 metres of highways.

The state government seems to be banking on NHAI's 2015 notification which declared that NHs that have been bypassed be considered as city or municipal roads. While the government may cite ORR as a bypass,  NHAI officials said there may be problems in notifying the ring road as a bypass road.

“Even bypass roads need to be built as per NHAI rules and guidelines by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. ORR has several bottlenecks and that will be an issue,” an official said.