Bengaluru: Govt plans 16 km ORR from Silk Board Junction to KR Puram

Bengaluru: In what could bring a major respite to lakhs of techies who use the notorious Silk Board Junction-KR Puram Outer Ring Road, the state government has planned a 16 km controlled access road which will bring down travel time from 45 minutes to 15 minutes.

According to sources in the secretariat, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George have given the green signal for the Rs 121­crore plan for the stretch, which is dotted with hundreds of IT and ITeS companies that have over four lakh employees.

“Currently, the 16 km stretch is chock-a-block with bottlenecks in a one-km distance, though five flyovers were constructed at a whopping Rs 300 core over the last five years. The BDA had earlier taken up the works to revamp the road at Rs 50 crore, but the authority ended up doing only the aesthetics, not really addressing the real concerns.

Major companies, like Cap Gemini, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Accenture among others, operate out of EcoSpace and Prestige Tech Park which see thousands of vehicles. During peak hours, the pile-up at the Silk Board Junction stretches till Sarjapur Road and at KR Puram up to Marathahalli, making the stretch treacherous. The comprehensive plan developed now will do away with intersections on the entire stretch,’’ said Mr R.K. Misra, who is an adviser to the state government.

Sources in the Urban Development Department told Deccan Chronicle that the road between Silk Board Junction and K.R. Puram will be grilled barring vehicle entry.

“There will be only entry and exit to the left of the four-lane road on both sides providing seamless travel. Service roads will be upgraded and rectified for one-way vehicle movement as thousands of company vehicles use this road to enter campuses. U-turns will be provided only under the flyovers to facilitate uninterrupted traffic flow,’’ sources said.

The space below the five flyovers will be utilised for bus-stops and to facilitate pedestrian movement. “There is heavy pedestrian crossing wherever flyovers or grade-separators do not exist. At such places, skywalks will be constructed under the PPP model. The project also involves improvement in drain works as water logging at underpasses is a perennial problem. On the service roads on the entire stretch, we will provide ducts for OFC cables as all IT companies are heavily dependent on these cables for connectivity,’’ he said. The project report also talks about traffic management plan for the controlled-access road.