Work on the much-publicised 10-lane expressway between Mysuru and Bengaluru is not expected to completed as scheduled in January 2022 due to labour scarcity on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The work, which began in May and December 2019 in two packages, had ground to a halt soon after a nationwide lockdown was declared in March this year. Even though work resumed in the last few weeks, the contractors are finding it difficult to mobilise labourers, majority of whom are migrants and have returned to their native places.
“There was virtually no work for three months after the lockdown was declared. Nobody was allowed to work,” said an official in the Public Works Department (PWD).
After the lockdown was lifted, the contractors began facing labour shortage. Work was proceeding at a snail’s pace as barely half of the required 8,000 labourers were available.
An official overseeing construction of the 118-km-long expressway expects the project to be delayed by at least two months. “If the time lost due to the lockdown and the delay due to labour shortage is not made up in the coming months, there could be a delay of two to three months,” the official said.
The official also ruled out the possibility of a decline in traffic volume hastening the pace of work. “There is no such advantage. The pace of work has no connection to decline in traffic volume. Work is taken up only after diverting the traffic,” the official added.
The expressway includes construction of by-pass roads for Bidadi, Ramanagara, Channapatna, Maddur, Mandya and Srirangapatna.
The project faced another hurdle when objections were raised to the alignment of by-passes. Mysuru MP Pratap Simha recently clarified that the objections were resolved when it was decided to build the by-passes on concrete pillars without encroaching upon any water body.
The 10-lane highway comprises of a six lane access controlled carriageway for traffic and a two-lane service road on either side for the benefit of local traffic. The highway connects Columbia Asia junction in Mysuru to Panchamukhi temple near NICE Road junction in Bengaluru.
The contractor – M/s. Dilip Buildcon Limited – had been given 30 months to complete the work. While the first package between Bengaluru and Nidaghatta began in May 2019, the second package between Nidaghatta and Mysuru started in December 2019.
The ₹7,400 crore project seeks to reduce the travel time between Mysuru and Bengaluru to 90 minutes from the existing three hours.