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Back on track? Western corridor tries to bypass controversies & green concerns

Back on track? Western corridor tries to bypass controversies & green concerns

Time of India4 hours ago

Bhopal: The western corridor of Bhopal that was cleared by the state govt before 2023 assembly polls, but was stuck after being marred with irregularities, is now slated to take off once again.
The project, which was to start from well before Mandideep while coming from Jabalpur side, would now start from after Mandideep towards Bhopal, to avoid controversies that influential people purchased land on sides of the corridor soon after the corridor was announced.
Officials said the second issue was environmental concerns from the project, as it moved from close to the catchment area of Upper Lake. To address the issue, the govt has decided to come up with an over bridge at the point where the corridor raised environmental concerns by passing through wetlands.
As per the new plan, the corridor would now start after Mandideep while coming towards Bhopal. This would reduce the corridor's length by four kilometers from 42 kms, as originally planned, to 38 kms. There would be a new 500 meters over bridge over Kolans river to avoid protected wetland site on the catchment of upper lake. Officials of the MP road development corporation said the new site selection survey is underway for the project and the work for the Rs 3000 cr project was expected to start after monsoon.
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The agency that was originally finalized to carry out the project would only do the work after the new site selection.
The project was expected to give the city its much awaited ring road. Officials said, the 52 kilometers existing by-pass in Bhopal city on national highway 46 starts from Gyarah Mill and ends at Bhauri Bhopal-Indore route. It covers the city from three directions due to which vehicles moving towards Indore have to cover 23 kilometers additional distance.
In Oct last year the public works department constituted a four member committee comprising officials of public works dept, representatives of dist collectors concerned and representative of district registrar. The complaint was made to the PMO and the govt of India, ministry of road transport and highway has sent it to the public works department, MP. Officials said the complaint was regarding purchase and sale of land along the proposed by-pass by the officials and issues related to land along the route of proposed western by-pass or corridor.
There was no issue in the project and it would take off after a new site selection survey, officials added.
The need of a western bypass was felt in the city for a long time. The 38 kilometers western highway would start from close to Mandideep (on Bhopal and Mandideep road) and end on Indore road in village Phanda Kalan. It would be developed with four lane access control criteria and service roads will also be there.
As per the initial plan, out of the total project cost worth close to Rs 3000 crore, Rs 427 crore would be for land acquisition, Rs 19 crore for utility shift, Rs 15 crore for environment management, apart from the corridor construction.
After development of the western bypass, Mandideep industrial area would get directly linked with industrial capital Indore. Similarly, it is also expected to save time for people moving from Kolar towards Indore.
The heavy vehicles coming from Jabalpur and Narmadapuram could move towards Indore from outside of Bhopal that would have saved 23 kilometers of distance and one hour of time.
After completion of the west by-pass, the Kolar road and Sehore road (Ratibad village) would witness increased industrial activity and it would also get alternate routes for Indore and Rajgarh. In the project, 6 lane structures with a four lane road and two lane service roads on both sides were planned. One ROB, two flyovers, fifteen underpasses and two major junctions were proposed along the alignment of the route.
It was proposed to be constructed on hybrid annuity model- a variant of the PPP model used for implementation of highway projects.

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