Bhubaneswar, Jan. 30: The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) is planning to develop public transport corridors and widen the existing roads in the city. However, the Ring Road, planned by the public works department (PWD) along the banks of Kuakhai river, has failed to make any significant progress because the BDA is yet to come up with a detailed master plan for the project.

The road project began at Pandra and is supposed to run till Daya Bridge, covering a distance of 13km.

PWD executive engineer (division-I) of the city Manoranjan Tripathy said: “The work has started near Pandra and it will be a parallel road to the bypass of NH-203, which starts from Rasulgarh. The road under construction will help in reducing traffic congestion because people can directly take the road to Daya bridge from Pandra. The proposed Ring Road will be parallel to the NH-203 bypass, which passes through Sai Temple.”

However, PWD sources said the proposed Ring Road for the city will help the growing capital region in making better communication and also act as a shield against floodwater. The Ring Road will encircle the city and thus the main arterial roads will connect it for better road network like that of Delhi and Cuttack. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone for this project on February 6, 2011.

Seeing the progress of the proposed Ring Road and the floating of the integrated mobility plan, several organisations involved in real-estate development on the city outskirts have urged the planning authorities to go for the development of the road network so that areas such as Khurda-Chandaka, Sundarpada-Jatni, Mancheswar-Patia and Andharua-Chandrasekharpur could be properly developed.

“It seems the city is only developing along a road. Where a new road starts being constructed, real-estate activities start shifting towards those areas. But developing areas along the Khurda-Chandaka Road and the Sundarpada-Jatni Road should have proper local connectivity and planning,” said senior member of the Real Estate Developers’ Association Anup Kumar Mohapatra.

“Once the state government identifies an area for building a road, the unnecessary delay over the work and encroachment issues ultimately delays the road work further. Ultimately, the construction cost goes up as money is needed for compensation. So BDA must act swiftly and develop roads near the developing outskirts,” Mohapatra said.

President of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (Odisha chapter) D.S. Tripathy said: “Due to uneven development in the areas on the city outskirts, the development is only concentrated in a few pockets of the city causing unexpected price rise and violations of building regulations because everyone wants to stay in the prime localities. If the development authority plans to develop road and bridge networks immediately, the purpose of the comprehensive development plan (CDP) will be served.’’ The CDP was launched in 2008 with the help of IIT Kharagpur.

The 13-km stretch of the proposed Ring Road is scheduled to finish by 2013 and needs Rs 35.09 crore. But, with the plans not been finalised by BDA yet, the things will be delayed further.

BDA planning member Prashant Kumar Patnaik said that the integrated mobility plan, for which BDA had already issued a notification to invite proposals from planning organisations, would ultimately aim to address the big roads which were at least 100ft in width.

However, the other smaller roads are to taken care of by the zonal development plan (ZDP) and the development body has already done some ZDP planning on the outskirts like Ainginia.

“BDA will be taking up detailed road network projects on the outskirts as the plan area has already been increased from 419 sqkm to more than 1,000 sqkm. But, at present, we are hoping for the entire ZDP exercise to be over,’’ he added.