Bengaluru, 14 July  

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Monday lashed out at Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar for pursuing an unscientific "vanity" tunnel road project in the city, claiming that it would only serve the elite while burdening the common man.

He urged the Congress-led government to abandon the plan and instead invest in expanding public transport infrastructure, warning that the tunnel project could worsen the city's traffic situation.

According to a Cabinet decision, the tunnel road will cost Rs 17,780 crore, and it will be implemented under modified Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model.

"When the Deputy CM himself says that even God can't fix Bengaluru traffic, he's revealing his own incompetence rather than working on solutions. We don't need divine intervention - we need competent governance. The tunnel road from Hebbal to Silk Board is an example of a vanity project being pushed through to build a road for the elite at the expense of the common man. Rather than improving the ease of living, Congress is systematically destroying public transport in Bengaluru," he told reporters.

Highlighting the proposed toll of Rs 660 for the 18 km project, Surya said it would benefit only the "crorepatis of Sadashivanagar and the millionaires and billionaires of Koramangala fourth block".

This project also demands a Rs 7,100 crore viability gap funding, further demonstrating its economic unviability, he said.

Seeking to know why should the 90 per cent of Bengalureans who do not own cars pay for a project that will cater only to 10 per cent car owners of Bengaluru, the Benglauru South MP cited repeated studies by IISC and other urban mobility organizations that have indicated that the tunnel road project will only increase usage of private vehicles and worsen traffic jams in the city.

"While prioritizing mass rapid transport options like Metro and buses will actually lead to decongestion, why is the state not prioritizing such projects (tunnel road)?" he asked.

According to Surya, this 18 kilometer tunnel road project, costs more than the Atal tunnel, where tunnels had to be drilled in the tough, terrains of the Himalayas. It cost more money per kilometer than the Mumbai coastal road project, where tunnels had to be dug inside of the Arabian Sea. This project costs more money than the 655 kilometer Trivandrum to Kasargod six lane highway.

Wondering why this tunnel road is so expensive, the MP further wanted to know "at whose cost is the Congress Party and the Deputy Chief Minister and the Chief Minister trying to loot the state?

The BJP opposed this "unscientific" tunnel road project that will only benefit the contractors and the Congress party at the cost of the general public of Bengaluru, he said.

"We will fight this in exploring every possible means at our disposal. We will fight inside the courts, we will fight inside the Vidhana Soudha. We will fight inside the parliament. We will build a public momentum so that this project, which is going to be a disaster for the city, will never see its daylight.“

Surya further said the tunnel road Detailed Project Report (DPR), prepared at a cost of Rs 9.5 crore, contains data directly copied from the DPR made by Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) at just Rs 1.6 crore.

Exposing the "utter negligence" of the consultants and BBMP authorities, he said the same DPR mentions Malegaon and Nashik while analysing traffic volume of certain corridors in Bengaluru, raising suspicions that they were directly copy-pasted from some other report.

Raising concerns over the consultants for the Feasibility Report and DPR, the MP pointed out that one of the group companies of a consultant, who prepared the Feasibility Report in a Joint Venture with a company who is debarred in Madhya Pradesh in an NHAI project.

He also alleged that consultants, who authored the DPR, were involved in a Rs 500 crore scam in Jammu & Kashmir.

He further claimed that the tunnel road project was progressing without the approval of the BMLTA, which is mandatory as per Section 19 of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) Act.

Urging Shivakumar to prioritise building more public transport options, Surya said Bengaluru is not just a city, it's the beating heart of modern India, and it deserves infrastructure that matches its global stature.