Land acquisition for Peripheral Ring Roads: BDA seeks funds from government
BENGALURU: The BDA’s decade-old, ambitious 65-km Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) project may not take off unless it gets financial assistance from the state government. The project may be shelved if the government fails to respond positively, say sources in the BDA.
The best of efforts by the BDA and the government to make the project financially viable and a reality did not pay off. The aim of the project is to connect the Hosur Road and Tumkur Road via the Bellary Road.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, the BDA commissioner Mr. T. Sham Bhat, said he wrote a letter to the state government explaining the bleak, weak financial position of the BDA and its inability to go ahead with the PRR ring road as it involves at least Rs 4,000 crores for its land acquisition.
Mr. Bhat has urged the state government to assure the BDA of financial assistance or a loan from a financial institution like HUDCO, to start the project. He is awaiting a reply from the government. Along with amendments to land acquisition laws made by the union government, increasing the compensation to land losers has made the project even tougher.
Although the BDA was contemplating taking up phase I of the PRR with financial assistance from the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), the pre-condition by the JICA is that the land should be acquired by the BDA, he said.
The BDA has prepared an estimate of Rs 7,400 crores for the project during a meeting with JICA authorities held in February. The BDA had planned Gujarat modalities to make the land losers the partners in the project.
Meanwhile, certain clearances are being obtained, including the technical feasibility and environmental impact assessment, said sources.
The BDA contemplated reducing the width of the road. The government had proposed to reduce the width of the road to 70 meter from 100 metres, said sources and explained that about 25 meters will be used for developing the land into a commercial hub. This will be handed over to farmers in the form of compensation. The remaining 5 meters of land out of 100 metres will be utilised for future plans of the BDA.
Farmers will be given an option of accepting the developed land, or monetary compensation, or Transferable Development Rights (TDR) in lieu of the land acquired for the project. The PRR linking several national highways and state highways will be made into a toll road to recover the cost of construction, sources added.
