CHENNAI: Work on the Rs 20,000 crore Chennai-Bangalore Expressway, which will pass through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, is expected to start in the next financial year. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has started the bidding process, according to its Chief general manager Alok Deepankar (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka).
This comes after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in Parliament that the work on Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway will begin soon. She said the project is likely to be started in the next six months. Sixty to 70 per cent land acquisition had been completed. The expressway is one of the 12 expressway projects being launched by the NDA government.
The 262-km-long, six-lane, access-controlled expressway begins at Hoskote in Karnataka and ends at Outer Ring Road near Chennai. The project, which is being implemented under public-private partnership, is likely to reduce travel time between Chennai and Bangalore to four hours.
Madurai-Chennai corridor to be monetised
On monetisation of 12 lots of highway bundles of over 6000 km before 2024, Deepankar said that in Tamil Nadu, NHAI has selected Chennai-Madurai-Chennai corridor. The Finance Minister had announced this. This comes after the Centre recently approved amendments to toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model for national highways.
TRAVEL TIME TO BE REDUCED BY 4 HOURS
The Expressway begins at Hoskote in Karnataka and ends at Outer Ring Road in Chennai. It is being implemented under public-private partnership (PPP)