Two Key Stretches Of Bengaluru Satellite Town Ring Road To Open In Novemeber: MP Tejasvi Surya

Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to inaugurate the two key stretches of the the 280 km Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR) in November this year.

The project will connect six National Highways and eight State Highways, which will help reduce congestion in the city,  It will alleviate traffic congestion within Bengaluru by providing an alternative route for trucks to bypass the city's congested areas.

NHAI awarded the work in 80 km stretch as two packages with Shankaranarayana Constructions (SNC) and Dilip Buildcon (DBL) getting the nod to execute one package each.

Out of the 288 km STRR, 244 falls in Karnataka and remaining in Tamil Nadu. Contract has been awarded to implement 136 km of work.

SNC is developing the 42-km Dobaspet-Doddaballapur section at a cost of Rs 1,350 crore that includes a 2.5 km-long flyover in Doddaballapur. Dilip Buildcon is executing hte 38 km stretch between Dodaballapur bypass and Hoskote section. The company was awarded the project for Rs 1,278 crore under hybrid annuity mode (HAM) mode.

About STRR
STRR will comprise a network of both national highway and state highway corridors. The project is envisaged to ease traffic congestion in Bengaluru city by providing a bypass for freight traffic, so that heavy vehicles can move along the peripheries of Bengaluru without entering it.

Though originally proposed in 2005, the STRR greenfield expressway project gained momentum after Modi government announced that the funding and execution will be undertaken under Bharatmala Pariyojna project. The project is expected to cost Rs 17,000 crores.

While NHAI is funding 60 percent of the project cost, the State government of Karnataka will fund the remaining corpus (mostly the cost towards land acquisition).

STRR is being built in 3 parallel phases and involves construction of NH-948A and realignment of existing NH-648 (old NH-207).

To manage the development of STRR, the Karnataka government set up a planning authority called Satellite Town Ring Road Planning Authority in 2016. The STRRPA’s jurisdiction includes a planning area of 1019 sq km. It will include 331villages and 12 towns that will be connected.

A Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) is also being planned as a 73.50-km stretch with a 100 metre-wide road. On completion it will connect Tumakuru in and Hosur roads, via Hessaraghatta Road, Doddaballapur Road, Ballari Road, Hennur Road, Old Madras Road, Hoskote Road and Sarjapur Road. Along with NICE Road, which links Tumakuru Road and Hosur Road via the city’s northwestern, western and southwestern areas, Bengaluru will have a 116-km-long bypass on its periphery.

Progress on other packages in STRR

While the 80 km Doddaballapur- Hoskote stretch is nearing completion, the work on 56 km stretch between Balagondapalli in Tamil Nadu to Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border is currently underway. Montecarlo (MCL) and S&P – SIEPL JV (S&P Infrastructure Developers Pvt. Ltd. – Skylark Infra Engineering Pvt. Ltd. JV) are executing the packages.

The main challenge to the ring road project continues to be design issue involved in planning the stretch that goes through Bannerghatta National Park. A stretch of 3.79 km passes through Mahadeshwara State Forest in Bannerghatta National Park (Anekal Wildlife Range).

In May this year, the second phase of STRR that passes through the Bannerghatta National Park finally secured environmental clearance.

An expert committee under the Union environmental ministry has recommended the project with the condition that clearance from the wildlife authority was mandatory.

The clearance comes four months after the state wildlife board under the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s chairmanship rejected the proposal to build a flyover inside Bannerghatta.

After members pointed out that allowing a road to be constructed inside the core forest area will set a bad precedence, the chief minister asked the NHAI to come up with an alternative alignment skirting the forest.