Will PRR happen or it’s a distant dream?

At this point in time, Bengaluru city is extremely overcrowded with congested road corridors and vehicular pollution. The Outer Ring Road (ORR), Bengaluru is one of the most affected roads, as it is used by the daily travelers from Doddaballapur Road, Bellary Road, Old Madras Road, Sarjapur Rd and NICE Ring Road (NRR) for their individual job locations in and around Bengaluru city. To ease the traffic movement on ORR, concerned authorities of the state has proposed the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR)

R Roshan Baig, Urban development minister, who is also the minister in charge of KUIDFC, said it was long-awaited project was executed and expected it will pick up in the coming days.

The PRR will connect four highways -Tumakuru Road, Ballari Road, Old Madras Road, and Hosur Road. The road will create smooth connectivity with Kanakapura Road and Mysuru Road, two other main highways linking to Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Central Government is discovering the PRR project. According to sources, the total project cost is estimated to be around Rs. 41,000 Crore. Once the project starts will take 36-40 months to complete the same as per information.

The project was first recommended in 2005. Issues which kept the project on hold so far are as follows the acquisition of land belonging to farmers, litigation, and the dearth of funds with Bangalore Development Authority (BDA). Later, a series of protests for reimbursement from the farmers whose lands were marked for acquisition kept the project at a standstill till now.

The project is now included under Bharat Mala Pariyojna. This is a project which was formed in order to develop the connectivity in the country through roads & highways along coastal areas, borders, tourist destinations, places of religious importance & district headquarters.

For the PRR, an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) has been formed together by BDA and KUIDFC (Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation) in order to raise finances and add further momentum to the project.

Moreover, the capital risk is partially shared by the government which will draw a number of bidders for this particular project. The Government is thinking of hybrid annuity based PPP model. Here, the developer bears 60 % of the project cost while the rest would be borne by the Centre.