You may know Bangalore had two ring roads, inner ring road, and the outer ring road. But you may not know that Bangalore will end up with two peripheral roads as well.
In 2005, BDA told us they were planning a peripheral road. The details were posted late 2005 to the BDA website. See the images they posted.
Then in January, I read articles. that “the peripheral road” was part of Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC), and was to be completed by July 2006! See The Hindu article here. This one went on to say that the southern portion between Tumkur Road and Hosur Road may be ready by February end. They didn’t mention the year and I assumed 2006.
The same article told us, quoting NICE MD Ashok Kheny, that:
“We wanted to take up only the southern portion of the peripheral road and leave the rest to the Government. The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has chosen to build a road of its own all around the city, parallel to our road by barely 250 metres in some places,”
Tell me if you are shocked. Two parallel roads, one built by BDA and another by NICE, could be running as close as 250 meters in some places. Who the hell planned this? I am no genius, this has been questioned before. I don’t mind though. We can dedicate one peripheral road for the auto rickshaws and BMTC buses. :)
Anyway. And today, I saw an ad placed by NICE in today’s Times of India that beat all predictions made by NICE and The Hindu in January. They are going to open a small portion of the “outer” peripheral road later this month. So much for the predictions of completing outer peripheral road by July 2006! See a part of their ad here.
PS: I had heard about “soft landing”, “soft pedalling”, “soft coding”, but what exactly is “soft opening”? The NICE ad promises a “soft opening” of this small stretch of peripheral road on June 16. Being a software guy, I am seeing the blues here. May be they are just opening a website or something, the real (aka “hard”) opening will follow later! See what their ad says:
Filed under: Bangalore |
/India/Bangalore/things 
Nice presentation….two mega investment projects of more than 1500 crores including land….it is not ther’s money right?…..
I don’t understand having two big roads so close, istead of wasting public money like this they can use this money in decongesting the inner roads of the city.
Is there any thing we can do to change this?
The problem is that the NICE Road is a TOLL road. There are plenty of persons(lower middle class etc.) who cannot afford the toll and need a free road.
Instead of building another road, perhaps the govt. can pay a lumpsum amount to NICE and ask them not to charge tolls
in the new allingment thee prr passes through properties in weavers colony bannargatta road wherin 300 houses are effected in just one area i wonder you people will justify this act done by the government.
silky if you are looking at covenience pleae do not at other peoples cost especially poor people who loose there lands.
That is what George (his last line) and I are saying Rakesh. Why build two peripheral roads when one good one can do? Less land to acquire, lesser ppl to displace.
And roads are not for anyone’s convenience, they are for growth. If I were to look at only my own convenience here, I would be asking for an elevated Airport Road till Whitefield and nothing else.
Pls read the report on this project in The Hindu dated 24th January 2007. It clearly exposes the “Real Intention” of NICE and Mr. Ashok Kheny.
If I am given ownership to sell Government acquired lands at rock bottom prices at prevailing Market prices on each side of the Toll road even before completion of the toll road PLUS enjoy 30 years of toll collection before handing over the toll roads back, I am ready to undertake similar projects all over India.
THE GOVERNMENT IS OUT OF IT NUTS TO HAVE 2 ROADS SO CLOSE ULTIMATELY IT IS PEOPLE LIKE U AND ME TO BEAR THE BRUNT AS THOUGH THE POLITICIN WILL PAY FROM THERE POCKETS.