Mysuru: Following the Supreme Court granting additional four-week time to the Centre to respond to its suggestion for developing an alternative route (connecting Karnataka and Kerala) as National Highway to ensure that the roads passing through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve are shut down permanently, a team of Forest Department, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the officials from Kerala and Karnataka State Highways surveyed the road and will submit an affidavit in the Apex Curt.

Confirming this to Star of Mysore this morning, Bandipur Project Tiger and Park Director T. Balachandra said that the survey was carried out three days back and the road from Sultan Batheri in Kerala that links to Mysuru via Gonikoppal has been identified as the alternative road. Traffic is at present banned inside Bandipur from 9 pm to 6 am and this was enforced in 2009 by Mysuru Deputy Commissioner.

Last week, a Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Surya Kant allowed Ministry of Road Transport and Highway and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to file its response on the suggestion made by the Supreme Court to permanently close NH-212 (new 766) connecting Kollegal in Karnataka with Kozhikode in Kerala via Mysuru after identifying the alternative road. In the existing road, 24.5 km goes through the core area of the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

The road inspecting team included T. Balachandra, Assistant Inspector General of NTCA, Bengaluru, Dr. Rajendra Garawad who is the South Zone Chief, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF) (Project Tiger) Jagat Ram, Nagarahole Project Tiger and Park Director Narayanaswamy and Superintending Engineer of NHAI Sridhar. The entire route comprises parts of State Highway 90, 89 and National Highway 275.

Balachandra said that following the 6 pm to 6 am traffic ban in Nagarahole National Park, the vehicles travelling from Mysuru to Kerala via Gonikoppal, Ponnampet, Kutta, Nanachi, Tholpetty and Manandavadi now depend on Sultan Batheri, Kutta, Gonikoppal and Mysuru State Highway. Apart from this, there is another road that links Mysuru and Kerala via Virajpet (Karnataka State Highway 90), Makutta and Kannur.

“We have identified the Sultan Batheri-Gonikoppal-Mysuru road as an alternative road following the directive from the SC. We have taken into consideration the convenience of travel, distance, avoiding roadkills, core jungle area and other statistics. We will submit an affidavit in the Apex Court in a couple of days,” Balachandra explained.

Once the affidavit is submitted, the NHAI will file a detailed report on the road as the SC wants the alternative road to be a standard one that meets the requirements of a National Highway.

Based on the Supreme Court directive, the NHAI will take a decision on widening the alternative road. “The travel time on this alternative road is an additional 36 kilometres including the Karnataka side of the border and from Sultan Batheri Gate, it is an additional distance of 20 kilometres,” Balachandra added.

The stretch from Gonikoppal to Hunsur on State Highway 90 has 12 kilometres of thick jungle that comes under the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. On one side of the road is the core area and on the other side is the buffer zone.