IANS

Bangalore, Jan 23: This tech hub Friday got its first elevated expressway on one of the busiest roads - Hosur Road - that leads to Electronic City housing several IT companies in east Bangalore. It is the longest elevated expressway in the country.

The 9.5-km expressway from Silk Board junction to Electronic City is a four-lane toll road. It is expected to drastically reduce travelling time to the centre of IT industry as the expressway passes over six major traffic bottlenecks.

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath threw open the expressway to traffic at a function near Electronic City.

The expressway is on National Highway-7 that runs through Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

A consortium of Maytas Infra, which was floated by the now disgraced Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju, Nagarjuna Construction Company Limited (NCC) and Soma Enterprises Limited (SEL) built the expressway at a cost of around Rs.760 crore (Rs.7.60 billion).

The consortium will collect the toll ranging from Rs.10 for two-wheelers, Rs.30 for cars for one-way journey and higher rates for heavy vehicles for 18 years as the project is on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model.

Nath said the Bangalore elevated expressway was the longest in the country.

He said about 17,000 km of expressways will be built across the country and Bangalore-Chennai expressway will be taken up on priority basis.

The minister said a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia is likely to be signed next month as that country has shown interest in collaborating with India in the development of roads and expressways.

Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily said the National Highway Authority of India will spend Rs.18,000 crore to develop national highways in Karnataka in the next four years.