KBR tunnel to set GHMC back by Rs 3,000 crore
The Centre said the corporation should not touch trees inside the park’s first boundary wall as it was under the ESZ
Hyderabad: The GHMC will be required to spend around Rs 3,000 crore to dig its proposed 1.38-km tunnel under the KBR Park junction. After conducting a pre-feasibility study, civic body officials said that the corporation should spend about 15 times more towards land acquisition, digging the rocky terrain and to construct the tunnel 10 metres below the road surface.
Way back in 2015, the government had proposed to develop six junctions around KBR National Park by building multi-level flyovers under the Strategic Road Development Programme. This required felling of more than 1,300 trees for widening roads.
To facilitate this, it proposed to modify the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) and finalised reduction of the park’s walkway to between three metres and 29.8 metres from the present 25 metres to 35 metres from its boundary.
Five years later, in 2020, the Union ministry of environment and forests cleared the proposal while an expert committee of the ministry sought a detailed report after conducting a public hearing over the draft notification.
The Centre said the corporation should not touch trees inside the park’s first boundary wall as it was under the ESZ and those out of the second boundary wall were not.
Citing this, the GHMC officials decided to construct four flyovers at the KBR junction —at Jubilee Hills checkpost junction (level two) and at Road No. 45 junction (level one).
The official said that only four of six skyways would be constructed. The corporation decided to construct flyovers at Maharaja Agrasen junction (Road No. 12) and Cancer Hospital junction (Road No. 10). The estimated cost to execute the skyways would be Rs 322.92 crore.
Overall the corporation has to translocate 800 trees for the project. In case the tunnel is not dug, it has to translocate 270 trees on the 1.38 km stretch.
A senior GHMC official, requesting anonymity, said that during the pre-feasibility test the corporation concluded that it involved an expenditure of Rs 3,000 crore to execute the project. There was a need to provide ventilation and emergency exits as a contingency plan. The latter implied that they had to acquire expensive lands opposite the park’s stretch.
"For a tunnel to be viable it should be at least 5 km long. The KBR Park tunnel does meet any of the requirements, If constructed it could be the most expensive project in the city. We will be hiring a consultant to prepare the DPR. If the project is found not viable, the corporation will be left with no other option but to translocate 270 trees in the 1.38 km stretch," the official added.