Bengaluru tunnel road to cost Rs 50,000 crore

Bengaluru’s proposed tunnel road will cost a staggering Rs 50,000 crore to build and reduce travel time between the city’s five major arterial roads to just 20 minutes.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is working on a plan to link Mysuru Road and Hosur Road via Tumakuru Road, Ballari Road and Old Madras Road through a 30-km-long tunnel.

The five arterial roads are currently linked through the 62-km Outer Ring Road, which runs entirely within the city and sees major traffic jams.

Credit: DH Graphic

'Only solution'

“Building a tunnel road is the only solution to decongest Bengaluru because there are too many physical hurdles overground for other traffic solutions. There are flyovers, metro lines, religious structures, etc,” NHAI’s Bengaluru Regional Officer Vivek Jaiswal told DH.

Also Read: Car-centric tunnel roads not the solution to Bengaluru traffic woes: Experts

The project will cost roughly Rs 50,000 crore, he said. “The state government will have to fund it,” he added.

Given the high cost, Jaiswal said it was not possible to use the BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) model, whereby the contractor pools the entire project cost. “But we believe the project is not impossible.”

In recent years, NHAI has adopted Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) to fund large-scale projects in the country. Under HAM, NHAI contributes 40% of cost through Engineering, Procurement and Construction. The contractor provides the rest under the BOT model.

Jaiswal said they were still working out modalities and identifying traffic bottlenecks the tunnel will serve. “We are still conceiving it,” he said.

The NHAI is looking for government land along tunnel’s alignment, he said. Housing societies, apartment complexes and shopping malls will be given direct access to tunnel through up and down ramps, according to NHAI.

A decade-old plan for 74-km peripheral ring road connecting Hosur Road with Tumakuru Road via Old Madras Road & Ballari Road hasn’t taken off due to huge land costs. It’s unclear what will happen to PRR if tunnel road materialises.