A delegation of Congress leaders, led by former minister H C Mahadevappa, inspected the Bengaluru-Mysuru Express Highway for eight km from Siddalingapura near Mysuru, on Friday. They said that they found a few lacunae, including sub-standard barricades. Meanwhile, they continued the credit war and Mahadevappa said that the Congress must also get credit. “But ultimately, it is taxpayers’ money,” he said.
KPCC spokesman M Lakshmana said that due to improper curing of precast slabs, used for barricades, footpaths and underpasses are broken. “There is no drainage system for elevated roads. The culverts for water flow are all closed,” he said.
Mahadevappa released some documents to claim that the project was approved on March 4, 2014.
“Then Siddaramaiah was chief minister, I was PWD minister, Manmohan Singh was heading UPA-II government at the Centre, and Oscar Fernandes was the Union transport minister. The estimated cost was Rs 3,000 crore, supposed to be completed in August 2022. But, its cost has escalated to Rs 9,551 crore and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) claims that it might touch Rs 12,000 crore for completion. The project was initiated by the Congress and the BJP has given the escalated amount as it was an ongoing project,” he said.
He added that the detailed project report was prepared from October 10, 2014, and March 15, 2016.
“It was handed over to NHAI from the PWD on July 21, 2016. Notification for acquisition for 2,500 acres of land at a cost of Rs 4,400 crore was completed on October 4, 2016. All these happened when Congress government was there in Karnataka. It was the dream project of the Congress. Hence, the credit should go to the Congress also,” he said.
He said that they are opposing a hurried inauguration since the works on 22 km out of 118 km is pending.
“It might take another eight months for completion. Adequate number of underpasses, elevated roads, and service roads are yet to be done. There are no entry and exit points to major towns en route,” he said.
Mahadevappa said that Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway was converted from two lane to four lane, when Congress government was headed by S M Krishna in Karnataka in 2002-2004.
“Also, 376 km Bengaluru-Mysuru-Madikeri-Bantwal state highway was handed over to NHAI in 2014. Also 7,150 km of state highway were converted to National Highways in 2014-15, when Congress was in power,” he said.