Tunnel roads, PRR, and Integrated SWM made significant progress this year

Bengaluru Development Minister announces tunnel roads and skydeck projects, facing opposition, while government secures loans for implementation.

Days after taking charge as Bengaluru Development Minister in mid-2023, D.K. Shivakumar created a flutter by announcing his two pet projects — tunnel roads and a 250-metre-high skydeck — which continue to face opposition from civic activists. The year gone by, 2024, saw significant progress on these projects unfazed by the opposition. The year closed with civil society activists terming these projects are “misplaced priorities” and demanded they be scrapped. 

Two other significant steps have been taken this year: the State government deciding to implement the much-delayed Peripheral Ring Road independently and the city administration opting for an integrated solid waste management (ISWM) system.

In an illustration of the political capital invested behind the tunnel road project, the Detailed Project Report (DPR), typically requiring nine to twelve months for completion, was finalised in just three months this November. The investment involves constructing twin-tube tunnel roads along the North-South axis (Hebbal to Silk Board, spanning 18 km) and the East-West axis (K.R. Puram to Mysore Road, covering 22 km). It also received approval from the State Cabinet earlier in August.

After failing to attract private investment for both PRR and tunnel roads, the state government decided to implement these projects on its own, raising long-term loans in 2024. While the state cabinet approved raising a loan of ₹27,000 Crore for implementing the PRR and agreed to give a sovereign guarantee for the same in September, a similar proposal to raise ₹19,000 Crore loan for tunnel roads is expected to come up before the cabinet soon. 

In the coming year, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which is implementing the tunnel roads project, and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which is implementing the PRR, will work towards securing these loans and calling tenders for the civil works. 

The BDA is in the final stages of securing a ₹27,000 crore loan for the PRR project from the Union government’s PSU, Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). A significant portion of this loan will be allocated for acquiring over 1,900 acres of prime real estate around the city in 2025. While farmers are demanding compensation under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the BDA has decided to provide compensation solely under the BDA Act, 1976. This disagreement is expected to dominate much of 2025.

The city’s civic body seems to have been unable to find a suitable place to put up a skydeck, even as how it will be financed is still unclear. After initial proposals to put up a sky deck in NGEF land, Mysore Lamps factory land was shot down due to defence security reasons, the BBMP zeroed in on a 25-acre land parcel owned by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) in Hemmigepura, and even called for objections for the same. However, that land also seems to have run into legal issues and is jinxed by the possibility of a second airport, and the search for a suitable land parcel is still on.