Govt to rebrand Peripheral Ring Road as Bengaluru Business Corridor

Bengaluru: The state government is preparing to jazz up the long-pending Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) by renaming the 71-km stretch as Bengaluru Business Corridor.

Dy CM D K Shivakumar on Wednesday said a global tender would be floated by the end of this week to implement the project, which has remained on the drawing board for the last 20 years. The land-losers, he said, would be compensated fairly. “There is a lot of pressure on the government to denotify the land but we will not do it. The project is needed to ease traffic. Since there will be a lot of business activities on both sides of the road, we are renaming the project,” Shivakumar, who hold the Bengaluru Development portfolio, said.

Compensating the land-losers has been a contentious issue. While the BDA has maintained that the land-losers would be compensated as per the rules prevalent when 1,818 acres of land was notified in 2006, the farmers have insisted that the compensation should be as per the 2014 land acquisition Act.

On Wednesday, Shivakumar tried to strike a balance, stating the farmers would be compensated fairly. “The land will be acquired keeping in mind the new rules and the Supreme Court orders,” he said.

Shivakumar further said a meeting headed by a retired HC judge has been scheduled on January 18 (Thursday) on the project, but did not divulge any details.

“We will float a global tender by the end of this week. Anybody can participate. There was a lot of pressure to take up the work under SWISS challenge but the government has decided to opt for regular method of tendering,” he said.