Karnataka to upgrade state highways at Rs 2,150cr cost

Karnataka Cabinet today approved a proposal to upgrade 3,411 km of state highways with a total investment of Rs 2,150 crore over the next three years.

Of the cost, the loan component from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank is Rs 1,565 crore and Rs 585 crore, respectively, Higher Education Minister V S Acharya told reporters after a cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda.

"These highways will be taken up to the standards of national highway", he said.

The Cabinet also approved giving contract to Ramky Infrastructure to build a Rs 250 crore Traffic and Transit Management Centre (TTMC) at Hebbal which would house a bus terminus and commercial complex, besides car parking facility.

Ramky would manage the TTMC, which would come up on a nearly eight acre land, for 30 years giving the government an annual revenue Rs 1.56 crore, and thereafter hand it over to it, Acharya said. The Government also decided to allot Rs 25 crore, under the coconut plantations development project, for the benefit of the growers, the Minister said.