The State government is lobbying hard to get stretches of national highways within city limits de-notified in an attempt to circumvent the liquor ban affecting establishments in the Central Business District (CBD). But, sources said, the government is caught in a bind as in doing so, the axe may fall on Outer Ring Road (ORR), which may have to be notified as a bypass to preserve continuity of National Highways.
Two highways – NH 44 from Srinagar to Kanyakumari and NH 48 from Delhi to Chennai – pass through Bengaluru. The total length of highways passing through the city is 31.8 km.
In the 1980s, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) handed over stretches of these highways within city limits to the civic body for upkeep and maintenance.
M. Lakshminarayana, principal secretary, Public Works Department said that these were included in a proposal sent to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for denotification as national highways.
However, sources in NHAI said, national highways need to be continuous and cannot be broken in stretches. “The practice is to build a bypass before denotifying the stretch of national highways passing within the city. But in case of Bengaluru, no bypass has been built or notified,” said a senior civic official.
The only option is to notify ORR as a bypass, sources said. In that case, the 500-metre no liquor sale rule will adversely affect establishments on ORR, officials added.
“These issues will be part of the negotiations with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways,” said a senior PWD official.
