• Pratap Simha stresses on safety factor along the on-going upgradation of Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway
• Meets Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, seeks shifting of underpass from Naganahalli to Siddalingapura

Mysore/Mysuru: In a bid to provide safe passage to residents of various towns and villages along the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway-275 that is being upgraded to a 10-lane Highway (including service roads), Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha has appealed for ensuring safety while building the service roads. 

Submitting a memorandum to Union Road and Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari in New Delhi after a recent meeting on Highways chaired by the Minister, the MP said that utmost safety has to be ensured so that the villagers and residents along the highway do not have a problem while moving on the Service Roads or while crossing underpasses to reach their villages. 

The Service Roads that will be built along the upgraded Highway must be wide enough to accommodate traffic that does not move on the main lanes of the Highway. Also, the underpasses must have smooth entry and exit passages considering the fact that the towns along the Highway like Mandya, Ramanagara and Chennapatna are thickly populated.

Noting that there are several industries along the Highway, Pratap Simha said that vehicles visiting the industries or farmers carrying agricultural produce should not be inconvenienced and at the same time while building the Service Roads, the stretches must be ensured to be accident-free zones with several measures, the MP mentioned in the memorandum.  He also noted that for the residents to be aware of the steps taken to build the 10-lane Highway, the National Highways Authority of India that is implementing the project must bring out and publicise an implementation report on the project. 

There is a proposal to build a Railway Goods Terminal in 400 acres of land at Naganahalli near Srirangapatna and there is also a proposal to build an Agriculture  University there. As per the road widening project plan, an underpass will come up at Naganahalli and this might cause inconvenience to people, the MP noted. 

Instead, the underpass must be built near Siddalingapura Pratap Simha suggested and also pointed out that villagers of Siddalingapura have demanded an underpass at their village so that they would be spared of the trouble of travelling three to four kilometres to Naganahalli to reach the underpass to travel to the other side. Simha appealed to the Minister to take up this issue with NHAI officials and shift the underpass from Naganahalli to Siddalingapura.