Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Japanese push to Bangalore-Chennai expressway

The proposed 330-km Bangalore–Chennai expressway, which will be part of the PRIDe corridor, received a big push by Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), which said the detailed project report may be ready by September.
The project, which promises to be the ‘pride of India’, is expected to turn South India into the country’s industrial hub.
At the conference on ‘Intelligent Transport System (ITS) for

Strategic Urban Development in India Cities’, Yasunori Watanabe, president, JCCI, said: “The PRIDe corridor connecting the major industrial areas in South India needs to be taken up urgently. The most important among these is the Bangalore–Chennai expressway, which, once completed, will reduce travel time from seven hours to five hours. This means at least 30% reduction in time taken to travel to and fro.”

He said there was urgent need to improve the city’s infrastructure, especially transport, as private investors were eyeing Bangalore and South India was being considered as the future industrial hub.

According to him, the stretches that need immediate attention are Mysore Road between BHEL signal and Nayandahalli and Muslim Memorial ground and BHEL signal, Whitefield Road (in and around International Tech Park) and Tumkur Road (near Yeshwantpur railway station).
He called for rapid improvement in the traffic manners of the city’s two-wheeler and autorickshaw drivers to ease congestion. ITS technology could solve these issues but the government has to reform its policies, Watanabe said.

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which also attended the conference, said it would launch a survey on introduction of ITS in major cities.

“This will be taken up in March and completed in July,” announced Taro Okawa of JICA.

“We are also looking at possibilities of financial as well as technical assistance for the construction of peripheral ring road and ITS for highway transportation management system and transportation management system,” he added.

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