Gadkari is back with his mega projects and this time announcing concrete expressways accross India. One of them is to connect Bangalore to Chennai and bring down the travel distance from the current more than 300 Kms to 262 Kms and make it reachable in 3 hours time..land acqusition has already begun on the 70 Km stretch within Karnataka..
On the out set it looks a interesting plan, but looking deeper it is seen that the allignment will again pass through 3 states (KA/AP/TN). As we all know its not the passenger bus or the cars which constitute higher volumes of traffic on the highways..its the trucks which are regulars on the routes and for trucks, passing through an additional state will mean more tax for permits and bribe..this is the reason the trucks going from Kar to TN avoid the NH4 route today. That is why we now have an OMR (Old Madras Road). So it cab be expected that the usage of the proposed expressway by trucks will not be optimal.
However the proposed route for the expressway opens up one more opportunity and this is shorteneing the train travel distance between Blr- Chn. Currently its about 362 Kms..mainly because of the V route it takes just after it enters ANdhra. This is probably to avoid the Koudinya Wild life Sanctuary which spans the border of TN/AP.
Now that the road expressway is planned to anyway go through this sanctuary, would it not make sense to take the railway also along this route?!
This will also lead to reduction in train travel distance by introducing 'bullet trains' on existing tracks!
Also, its not a great way to promote private transport..public mass transport is the only way to go for India..especially Bangalore, where roads are grossly inadequate!
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