The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will take up four-laning of the 190-km stretch of NH 17 from Kundapur to the Goa border in Karnataka. The road project in the west coast is expected to be completed by 2016. The detailed project report (DPR) for the 1,756 crore project is ready and work is likely to commence by mid-2013.
The NHAI is working on the Surathkal-Kundapur four-lane project, which should be completed in another year. This will cut travel time between Mangalore and the Goa border, currently six hours, by at least 60 minutes.
The project will be executed by Mumbai-based IRB Infrastructure Developers under the National Highway Development Project Phase IV under the design, build, finance, operate, transfer (DBFOT) toll basis. The concession period is 28 years, including the construction period of 30 months, from the appointed date.
The NHAI has given a grant of Rs 536.22 crore to the firm. Earlier, the NHAI initiated the project by bid process in mid-2011, but failed to get the required response as it was on a build, operate, transfer (BOT) toll basis. Currently, the four-laning of Surathkal to Kundapur is in progress and when the Kundapur-Goa section is complete, it’ll offer motorists seamless driving experience plus savings in time and fuel.
The DPR indicates there’s a need to widen the existing road as the average daily traffic (ADT) between Kundapur-Goa border is 14,191 tollable passenger car units (PCU) traffic. The total traffic is a little more than 17,000 PCU.
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