Mysore/Mysuru: The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has begun boundary marking exercise and land acquisition survey for the four/ six-lane Mysuru-Madikeri Economic Corridor Expressway Project along the Mysuru-Madikeri NH-275. 

The 115 km-long Expressway costing Rs.6,000 crore is a fully Centrally-funded Project including land acquisition. The new Highway is being built to connect Mysuru and Madikeri. Once completed, the Expressway will not touch Mysuru and will link the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway that is being expanded to 10-lane Highway.

The Expressway will connect Madikeri with Bengaluru bypassing Suntikoppa, Kushalnagar, Bylakuppe, Koppa, Kampalapura, Periyapatna, Kallbeta, Gonikoppal Deviation Road, Hunsur and Mysuru. 

The Expressway will touch the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway at Paschimavahini near Srirangapatna.

The first stage of the survey has been completed till Basavanahalli on the Srirangapatna-Bylakuppe-Madikeri Road. Now, the NHAI and Revenue Department officers have been marking boundaries and planting stone benchmarks near Teppadagandi in Kodagu district till the Highway stretch of Basavanahalli. 

According to NHAI officials, a new bridge will be built across River Cauvery near Teppadagandi Hanging Bridge. The road will have four/ six lanes as per the specifications mentioned in the NHAI website. A giant circle will come up at Teppadagandi and will cross the Konanur-Thalassery State Highway to link Aanekaadu via Basavanahalli. 

Officials said that after the boundaries are marked, the initial works will begin. Notices will be issued to the land owners and their objections will be recorded. The compensation has been fixed and the process of identifying the land owners who are eligible for compensation was on. This survey process is being conducted along with the Revenue Department. 

Speaking to Star of Mysore, Special Land Acquisition Officer Devaraj said that the first phase of the joint survey work of 42 kilometres of the Expressway has been completed. “We are taking along the Revenue officials as they will have extensive knowledge of the land and its owners as per revenue records. We are aiming to complete the entire survey — including bridges and bypass roads — by the end of December and submit the report to the Government. Once the compensation is disbursed, the road construction works will take one-and-a-half to two years to complete,” he said. 

The Expressway has a design length of 93 kilometres and bypasses have been proposed having an aggregate length of 84 kilometres at Kushalnagar, Periyapatna, and combined bypass for Hunsur, Bilikere and Mysuru.  It will have a road median and the alignment for the new corridor has already been done. It will considerably reduce the journey time between Madikeri and Bengaluru and also connects several cities in North Kerala.

The existing four-lane road between Mysuru and Madikeri (NH-275) has reached a saturation point and there is an urgent need to build a separate road. Travelling on the existing Highway is a nightmarish experience especially during weekends and holidays when thousands of vehicles move between Mysuru and Madikeri. Once completed, the Expressway will reduce the journey time between Madikeri and Bengaluru to five hours from existing seven hours.