The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to connect the proposed Bangalore-Chennai Expressway (BCE) that ends at Sriperumbudur with the Chennai Port-Maduravoyal Elevated Expressway at Maduravoyal.
A six-lane elevated road from Sriperumbudur to Maduravoyal will run along the Poonamallee High Road and cost around ₹3,000 crore to construct. The NHAI is going in for vertical development to avoid land acquisition and minimise social impact. A detailed project report for the 22-km road is in the works.
“Earlier the plan was to connect the BCE with the Chennai Outer Ring Road. But since we wanted connectivity with the core city, it is being taken to the Chennai Port-Maduravoyal Elevated Expressway. This would also mean better connectivity to vehicles proceeding to the Chennai port,” an NHAI official said. Tenders for both the BCE and the elevated road to Maduravoyal would be finalised this year and the project would be awarded before March 2019. The six-lane elevated road would take 30 months to construct, the official added.
On the Karnataka side, the BCE would be connected to the Satellite Town Ring Road that would run through Dobbspet, Devanahalli, Doddaballapur, Hosur, Anekal, Hosakote, Ramanagara and Magadi. The environmental clearance for the greenfield BCE project is in process and tenders for the Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh stretches are likely to be called for in that order. Land acqisition for the project is at an advanced stage. The alignment of the proposed BCE falls between two existing roads to Bengaluru and is expected to cut down running time between the two cities. On completion, this would south India’s first expressway.
Badrinarayanan, who travels to Bengaluru on a regular basis, said that it would be nice to get onto the expressway at Maduravoyal instead of at Sriperumbudur. “I live in south Chennai and getting to Sriperumbudur is an issue for me. There is just too much traffic,” he said.
