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New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, Tejasvi Surya on Thursday opposed Karnataka government's Tunnel Road initiative, calling it unscientific. He said that the Congress government's plan of decongesting Bengaluru, was not feasible. He said that the expert endorsement being showcased in favour of Tunnel Road was done by a Congress party spokesperson - first a politician, only later an engineer.
Surya said that surprisingly the Tunnel Road initiative says that the only way to decongest Bengaluru is to build tunnels and multi-layer roads. This, according to the BJP MP, clearly reveals the lack of understanding of urban planning and transportation science.
He said that his opposition to the Tunnel Road initiative was not due to some civil engineering impossibility. But, he claimed to oppose the initiative because it would not decongest Bengaluru, but make matters worse for the city.
He also accused the Congress government of spending thousands of crores on creating a "VIP corridor" which will not serve public transport. Talking numbers he claimed that studies have shown that rapid transport systems can move close to 70,000 people per hour per direction, whereas building expensive tunnels would only help in the movement of 1800 cars per hour, per direction. He called the initiative of the Siddaramaiah government "foolish."
He questioned why so much of public money was being used to benefit a tiny minority of vehicle owners. He also asked whether instead of prioritising public transport, the state government was subsidising private car ownership.
He claimed that the report, reportedly prepared by the Institution of Engineers (India), completely ignored environmental impact, hydrology risks and geological threats. He said that the experts had not taken into consideration the impact tunneling beneath the 3 billion year old Lalbagh Rock formation on the structure.
He further accused the Karnataka government of lying about the project's cost. He said that, according to the government, the per kilometre cost for the tunnel will be 440 crores, but actually the cost would be Rs 1000 crores per kilometre. He said that in a resource limited country, every rupee must be more efficiently utilized.
He demanded a mass rapid metro transport system, instead of tunnels. The BJP leader also demanded a scientific study in the matter and asked the National Institute of Rock Mechanics, Geological Survey of India, National Institute of Hydrology and Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research to look into the matter.
Earlier, the Tunnel Road Project was endorsed by Karnataka's Deputy CM, DK Shivakumar. He had in a post on 'X' said that The Institution of Engineers (India) has given full and unequivocal support to our Tunnel Road initiative, calling it the most practical long-term solution to decongest Bengaluru." According to the Deputy CM, the city needs modern, multi-layered mobility infrastructure, and a tunnel road can remove over 2.5 million vehicles from surface roads - dramatically improving daily travel.
