It is almost a year since the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari promised to take up a tunnel project on Western Ghat’s Shiradi Ghat stretch connecting Mangaluru with Bengaluru.
Industry bodies in the region feel that the construction of a 23.6-km-long tunnel on Shiradi Ghat will reduce the travel time between Mangaluru and Bengaluru on NH 75 by nearly three hours, and would help both passengers and the goods vehicles.
Long overdue
In a request to the Ministry seeking the construction of a tunnel during December 2021, the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) had stated that they have been striving for an all-weather road connectivity between Mangaluru and Bengaluru for over three decades, and Shiradi Ghat stretch is the main link to the state’s New Mangalore Port (NMP) from the hinterland. KCCI’s contention was that the constant repairs on this road and landslides during monsoons are affecting the road users.
Gadkari, who was in Mangaluru in February 2022, had said that NMP is finding it difficult to use its full potential because of the bottleneck at Shiradi Ghat. Stating that there was a proposal to construct a tunnel on Shiradi Ghat stretch, the Minister had said that an Austrian agency had done a study on the six-lane tunnel project.
However, in a reply in Parliament on December 8, 2022, Gadkari said: “Construction of tunnels in Shiradi Ghat section involves huge investments as well as difficulties in execution of work and may not be viable.”
Interestingly, Gadkari’s letter to the Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel in January 2023 said NHAI is taking up the finalisation of DPR (detailed project report) works for the tunnel project. The letter said a tunnel would decrease the logistic cost for the traffic between Mangaluru and Bengaluru. He said the project is estimated to cost ₹15000 crore.
Ganesh Kamath, KCCI President, said New Mangalore Port’s business from Karnataka hinterland is going to ports such as Chennai because of the poor road connectivity between the hinterland and Mangaluru. New Mangalore Port will witness exponential growth in cargo handling, if the tunnel project on Shiradi ghat stretch becomes a reality, he said.
Stating that the current travel time between Mangaluru and Bengaluru is around eight hours, he said the proposed tunnel project would reduce the travel time significantly.
Ghat damaged
The Karnataka government is focusing on the ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ initiative to attract the IT sector to coastal Karnataka, and good connectivity would be a major pillar in this regard, he said.
Dinesh Holla, coordinator of Sahyadri Sanchaya (a forum of environmentalists), said several projects have already damaged the Shiradi Ghat section. Various tunnels for the railway line on the ghat section have already destroyed the rain catchment areas in the section.
The ghat section saw the establishment of several mini hydel projects in the last two decades, and the infrastructure works related to those projects led to the damage of the ghat section, he said. The recent Yettinaholey river diversion project has destroyed several natural streams in the region.
Landslides in the ghat section in the recent past are the outcome of these projects, he said, adding people are least bothered about the impact and are stressing for the tunnel project. “No technology will stand if nature takes a different turn,” he said.