BENGALURU: BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Monday ripped apart Bengaluru’s Tunnel Road project, calling it a “big scam” and urging people to reject it on “principle, procedure and scientific grounds”. For 10 per cent of people, 90 per cent people’s tax money is being used, he said.
At a press conference on Monday, Surya referred to the IISc study that per hour, 1,500 cars will ply on the 18-km Tunnel Road, as against 25,000 passengers in public transport.
“The Tunnel Road is for the benefit of influential and rich persons in Sadashivanagar and Koramangala 4th Block,” he said, adding that the contractor engaged in the Rs 18,000-crore project will get a viability gap funding of Rs 7,500 crore from the state government.
“The viability gap fund is when a project cannot sustain itself on its finances, and is given a subsidy. Taxes of common people are given to such agencies, yet taxpayers like autodrivers, two-wheeler riders and others will not be allowed, only car owners can use the Tunnel Road. This is financial apartheid,” he charged.
Surya also raised questions about the agency involved in the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and said Rs 9.5crore was given to the consultancy by BBMP, but the agency did not do any research or survey on its own, but was involved in ‘cut and paste’. “The original DPR on the tunnel project was done by the Metro Rail department which spent Rs 1.5crore, but to cut copy and paste the same, the government spent Rs 9.5crore,” he said.
He noted that the Comprehensive Mobility Plan 2020 has mentioned 16,580 buses for Bengaluru and a 313-km Metro network by 2031, but in reality, there is a shortage of 9,000 buses and over 200km of the Metro Yellow Line is pending clearance for the past four years. But the government is thinking about spending Rs 42,000 crore on the Tunnel Road. The BJP will protest against the project and create awareness among the public, he added.