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The Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) for Mysuru proposed in the master plan 2031 to wean away out-bound traffic and disperse growth, has remained a non-starter over financial and land acquisition issues.
The PRR was initially mentioned in the master plan and the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) announced its intent on going ahead with it in 2016. But almost 5 years later, the project is on the backburner and there is little discussion on taking it forward though the authorities aver that the project has not been scrapped.
MUDA Chairman H.V. Rajeev said that the project is definitely on and the issue was also discussed with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for their support.
The proposed PRR will have a length of nearly 106 km and will come up about 5 km to 6 km from the ORR. Mr. Rajeev said MUDA envisages having around 1,000 acres of land for implementing the road work of which nearly 400 acres was already available with it. ‘’We may need another 600 acres of land to take the project forward’’, according to Mr. Rajeev.
But officials pointed out that the cash-strapped MUDA will have a tough time arranging funds for land acquisition on such a scale. Even the government may be reluctant to go ahead with the PRR at this juncture as bulk of the resources have been diverted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, there are other critical infrastructure works that need to be completed for which there is a financial crunch.
Incidentally, the MUDA had envisaged an expenditure of ₹1,500 crore for the road works including cost of land acquisition when it announced the project. But with uncertainty looming large on commencement of the project, the authorities expect the cost to increase further. The alignment of the PRR has already been drawn cursorily in the master plan though recent developments including plot developments on the periphery of Mysuru may entail tweaking it, according to the authorities.
The PRR will also connect a cluster of villages, some of which display semi-urban characteristics, to improve road connectivity in the region. With the Outer Ring Road already attaining high density of traffic besides triggering a spurt in new residential areas along the 42.4 km periphery, the authorities aver the PRR cannot be delayed any further. But funding and land acquisition issues will further delay the project which is yet to take off from the drawing board despite the imperatives of taking it up, according to the MUDA officials.
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