With almost 1.3 crore automobiles, Bengaluru is house to just about the identical variety of individuals. Since 2019, town has recurrently featured among the many most congested cities on this planet. In 2024, it took a mean of 34.1 minutes to journey 10 km within the metropolis, with almost  117 hours misplaced per 12 months on roads throughout rush hours.

Shivakumar, who additionally has town growth portfolio, has been attempting to mobilise help for the tunnel street challenge, assembly walkers in Cubbon Park within the morning and holding consultations with stakeholders to validate his plans. He has additionally hit out at detractors at any trace that they may oppose the challenge.

However what’s the tunnel street challenge all about?

The challenge

‘North–South Underground Vehicular Tunnel Venture’ is a proposed twin-tube underground tunnel—three lanes in every tube—connecting Hebbal and Silk Board Junction, two localities that contribute most to Bengaluru’s notorious site visitors snarls.

The challenge is break up into two packages. The Hebbal to Seshadri Street tunnel is estimated to price Rs 8,770 crore, and the Seshadri Street to Silk Board tunnel Rs 8,928 crore. Many entry and exit ramps are proposed alongside the 17km tunnel.

The challenge will halve the half-hour or so taken to journey from Hebbal, one in all Bengaluru’s greatest chokepoints, to Vidhana Soudha within the metropolis’s middle, in keeping with the detailed challenge report (DPR). Will probably be accomplished inside 50 months.

Underneath the mission assertion, the challenge goals to ‘dramatically’ cut back site visitors congestion within the metropolis’s core, improve city mobility and connectivity, protect surface-level city area, and promote sustainable development by lowering air pollution.

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Why underground

Bengaluru’s street community spans almost 14,000 km, together with main arterial roads, sub-arterial roads, and residential streets.

Town’s main arterial roads alone account for simply 20 p.c of all roads however bear a lot of the high-density site visitors.

Delays in finishing the Peripheral Ring Street and Satellite tv for pc City Ring Street have exacerbated the issue, forcing most freeway site visitors to undergo town.

Deputy Chief Minister D.Okay. Shivakumar has advocated for underground street growth as an answer to land acquisition issues, which considerably delay initiatives and inflate prices. This method would additionally mitigate the necessity to demolish present infrastructure and buildings on the bottom.

Throughout his first time period in workplace, Siddaramaiah authorised a 6.7-km metal bridge between Chalukya Circle and Hebbal, at an estimated price of Rs 1,721 crore. The challenge was proposed to scale back journey time. However it additionally led to the reducing down of over 800 totally grown bushes.

That challenge confronted vital protests, together with the #SteelBridgeBega marketing campaign, forcing the federal government to stall it. Although the BJP initially opposed it, the celebration tried to revive the challenge when it got here to energy in 2019, with an inflated price, elevating issues of corruption, as properly.

The next shelving of the challenge was seen as a major victory for town’s residents, environmentalists, and others—a testomony to the affect of civil society protests.

In June 2023, talking at a public occasion in Vidhana Soudha, Shivakumar stated Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Okay.J. George, the then-development minister of Bengaluru, “have been scared” of the protests and therefore, shelved the challenge.

“If it have been me, I wouldn’t have succumbed to the sound made by protesters and gone forward with the challenge, it doesn’t matter what the implications,” Shivakumar instructed the general public that day.

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Apprehensions

The Bengaluru tunnel street was introduced after vital opposition from numerous quarters. A significant concern was whether or not the Bengaluru metropolis company may successfully handle the dimensions of the challenge. Underneath the company’s watch, India’s IT capital seems to have undergone extra spoil than renovation.

The company and the federal government are but to finish simply three kilometres of the E.G. Pura flyover, fuelling apprehensions of potential delays and corruption.

One other concern is that the challenge will result in extra congestion, because it prioritises automobiles. As Tejasvi Surya, the Bengaluru South Member of Parliament, stated: “The tunnel street challenge isn’t the answer to Bengaluru’s site visitors woes. Tunnel roads don’t decongest cities; they merely shift site visitors from one junction to a different with out addressing the foundation trigger, which is the overdependence on personal transport, and the dearth of sturdy public mobility choices.”

The opposition events and concrete specialists have as a substitute urged the Karnataka authorities to hurry up building of mass transit choices, such because the metro and suburban rail, and increase town’s fleet of public buses to make public transport a extra viable choice for residents.

On Sunday, Shivakumar took up their arguments to talk favourably of the challenge. “Isn’t the metro going by means of a tunnel?”

“I had travelled to 10 international locations and ready a report for the metro through the S.M. Krishna authorities. Ananthkumar and I travelled to Delhi to submit the report back to then-PM Vajpayee. That was the start of the metro challenge,” he stated.

Nonetheless, a minimum of three authorities businesses are recognized to have opposed the challenge of their studies. However, allegedly, diluted their findings later.

City specialists, in the meantime, are centered on questioning the neglect of extra viable choices than the tunnel street.

“The tunnel street, if it occurs in any respect, can solely be contracted through the time period of this authorities. Whereas 500 km of footpaths will be utterly in-built that point. 5000 extra buses will be—utterly—added in that point. Each main lake can have a cycle observe round it—in that point,” Ashwin Mahesh, a city-based city planner, stated on X. “Once we assess the worth of initiatives, we shouldn’t simply have a look at the challenge alone; we must always have a look at what else will be finished with the identical funds for a similar objectives (mobility, on this case) and in a shorter time period.”

The tunnel street challenge can also be prone to result in the erosion of inexperienced cowl on one of many metropolis’s greatest lung areas—Lalbagh.

Nonetheless, Shivakumar assured on Sunday, “We have now finished all types of research on tunnel roads. I’m not a idiot to destroy Lal Bagh. I do know its historical past and I do know what’s getting used and what’s not getting used within the park.”

Mobilising help

Identified for pushing growth initiatives in states the place it’s in energy, the BJP, the principal Opposition in Karnataka, has piled on strain on the Siddaramaiah authorities to drop the tunnel street challenge. On Sunday, it held a public signature marketing campaign to report opposition to the challenge.

“They shouldn’t communicate arrogantly as if they may undoubtedly implement the challenge. Lalbagh and Kempegowda Tower shouldn’t be broken. The surroundings shouldn’t be destroyed,” Chief of Opposition R. Ashoka stated Monday.

He remarked earlier that the challenge was designed for 10 p.c of personal automobile customers and overlooks nearly all of individuals from the middle- and lower-economic strata. The challenge price, he stated, will pressure the state’s already pressured funds.

On Saturday, Shivakumar stated that he was able to type a committee on the tunnel street challenge, with R. Ashoka at its helm. He additionally plans to proceed assembly morning walkers in Cubbon Park and the general public somewhere else to get their backing for the challenge.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)

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