Work on the four-lane concrete road between Marakada and Airport Entry Road being executed by the Public Works Department (PWD) has gained momentum as the department began cutting a hill near Kenjar to facilitate road widening.
The project, including a parallel bridge on the Phalguni (Gurupura) and a railway underbridge beneath the Mangaluru-Mumbai line, being executed at a cost of ₹50 crore, is likely to be completed by May 2023, according to PWD engineers.
While the Airport Road is a four-lane concrete stretch from KPT Junction till Marakada, closer to Mangaluru City Corporation border, it is a two-lane bitumen road from Marakada onwards. The construction of a parallel bridge across the Phalguni for the four-lane road project is already in an advanced stage.
PWD Executive Engineer, Mangaluru, S. Yashvanth Kumar told The Hindu that the city corporation will widen the stretch between Marakada and the Welcome Arch on its border, a distance of about 300 metres. The department will continue the four-lane concrete work from its jurisdiction thereafter and take this up to Airport Entry Road.
Discussions are in the final stages with Southern Railway as to who will execute the work of constructing one more railway underbridge at Maravoor, funds for which the department has already kept apart. It may take about a year to complete construction once work is taken up thereby paving way for a complete four-lane corridor between the city and the airport, he said.
The department is already in the process of straightening curves between the existing railway underbridge and Airport Entry Road on about a 1-km stretch of the Airport Road that passes adjacent to Sri Devi Institute of Technology. Hill cutting work is under progress that also involves blasting of rocks on the stretch, he said.
The project cost of ₹50 crore includes the cost for land acquisition, parallel bridge on the Phalguni and the railway underbridge, he added.
