Centre to build dozens of Ring Roads across cities to decongest urban highways

NEW DELHI: It’s not just metros like Delhi and Bengaluru where vehicle speeds drop sharply as highways enter city limits. Govt data shared with states on Wednesday show that even in smaller cities such as Madurai in Tamil Nadu, the average speed on NHs can fall to just 27 kmph inside the city due to traffic congestion, compared to 55 kmph on highway stretches outside it.

Aiming to remedy this growing problem of urban congestion, the Centre will take up development of around 34 new access-controlled Ring Roads, in addition to such 36 ongoing projects across cities. On Wednesday, road transport and highways ministry shared the roadmap with states while seeking support for fast-tracking the development of Ring Roads with a design speed of 100-120 kmph.

Targeting to decongest NHs in urban areas, the road transport and highway ministry has identified agglomeration and cities with more than five lakh population for construction of the greenfield Ring Roads. These include Kolkata and Amaravati agglomerations, Nashik, Thiruvananthapuram, Ajmer, Warangal, Mangaluru, Udaipur and Tirunelveli. The details were shared with state PWD and urban development secretaries at a meeting chaired by road transport minister Nitin Gadkari.

To ensure that new Ring Roads don’t end up becoming new choke points, 15 metres on either side of these stretches will be notified as Development Control Zone (DCZ) where no construction will be allowed, except for public utilities and green zone. States will allow regulated development in 2 km beyond the DCZ.

For financing these capital intensive project, the states will have five different options to provide financial support, including upfront payment of 50% of cost and getting 50% of toll revenue for 15 years; payment of 50% of the land acquisition cost; and providing land pooled through land pooling scheme. Since states are the biggest beneficiary of such projects, they need to provide some share of the project cost, an official said.

The ministry has also shared the details of 15 legacy municipal dump sites close to upcoming NH projects across states, which can provide inert waste for construction embankment of such roads. “Some of the high speed corridors and urban decongestion road projects have been mapped that are within 50 km of the top 15 landfill sites. Around 277 lakh tonne of inert waste from these dump sites can potentially be utilised (for highway construction),” said an official.

In the closed door meeting, Gadkari said NH projects can significantly address the issue of legacy solid waste issues faced by cities. “Successful pilot projects, including UER-II in Delhi and Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway, have demonstrated the technical feasibility and economic benefits of the initiative,” his office said.