DKS wants more companies to participate in the tunnel roadways project.

The Forecast 2 years ago Karnataka

Despite allegations that the project is not a solution to the city's traffic problems, the Deputy Chief Minister (Dy.CM) and Bengaluru Development Minister said on Monday that only two companies had expressed interest in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP) Expression of Interest (EI) on building the proposed tunnel roads. Mr. Shivakumar stated that the deadline would be extended in order to promote more participation.

The announcements came on a day when a private company made a presentation on the project to Mr. Shivakumar at an event that was not open to the media.

Cost of project

The project is one of the Congress government’s most contentious - of converting the proposed 99-km-long elevated corridor network criss-crossing the city into tunnel roads. Expected to cost nearly ₹50,000 crore, the government is looking at implementing it on a public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

Aecom, an international consultancy firm that has worked on multiple tunnel road projects across the world and had also prepared the Detailed Project Report for the elevated corridor network project in 2017, had made a proposal for the tunnel network project last month.

The tunnel roads along a different alignment and elevated corridor network projects were first proposed byK.J. George when he was Bengaluru Development Minister in the earlier Congress regime, attracting the ire of civic activists and mobility experts. With the proposal making it to the Congress manifesto for the 2023 Assembly polls and now making significant strides towards implementation, objections are being raised again by the public.Many have termed it a “tunnel vision” and a result of “short sightedness.”

‘Develop multi-modal infrastructure’

Sandeep Anirudhan, citizen activist, said the kind of money that the government estimates to spend on this tunnel project can instead be spent on developing an entire multi-modal infrastructure for Bengaluru, which includes mass rapid transit, metros, suburban, more buses, last and first-mile connectivity, cycling lanes, pedestrianisation, etc.,and can make Bengaluru a “truly international city.”