Mysuru:  The much-awaited widening of the congested Irwin Road in the heart of the city, began with guddali puja at Panchamukhi Anjaneyaswamy Temple along the road this morning.

Area Corporator Nagaraj launched the works by performing guddali puja at the temple.

The Irwin Road is being widened into a 60 ft. road with a median, on the stretch between Nehru Circle (Head Post Office Circle) and Ayurveda Hospital Circle, covering a distance of 0.8 km.

The road widening work is taken up at a cost of Rs. 4 crore and Rs. 33.22 lakh tender has been approved for the demolition of necessary structures along both sides of the road to enable widening.

The State Government has released Rs. 44 crore for payment of compensation to property (buildings and sites) owners along the road, with 80 percent of the property owners agreeing to the compensation package offered by the Government.

As the road was too congested for vehicular movement, the City Police had turned the road into one-way, a few years ago and there was a demand from all quarters for widening the road. Now that the road widening works has begun, the citizens are hoping a free traffic movement on this ever busy road in the heart of the city.

Meanwhile, MCC sources said that there will be no traffic regulations as of now and the works are expected to be completed in three months.

MCC Zone 6 Development Officer H. Nagaraj, Junior Engineer K.R. Chandrashekar, Panchamukhi Anjaneyaswamy Temple Committee Chairman S. Shivakumar, members Chandrashekar Jadhav, Y.S. Nagesh and others were present at the ground-breaking ceremony.