The Hindu Business Line : SH 17 project second phase to be over in Nov 2005

SOMA Enterprises, which is involved in phase 2 of the four-laning of state highway linking silicon city Bangalore with heritage capital Mysore, is targeting project completion by November 2005, six months ahead of schedule.

Some 49 km of the SH 17 project to widen and upgrade the existing 140-km SH project between Maddur and Mysore was awarded to the Hyderabad-based Soma Enterprises.

"Work (which began a couple of months ago) is in progress on 10-15 km of the stretch and we are waiting for the land acquisition to be completed by the State agencies," said Mr Ankineedu Maganti, Director of Soma Enterprises. "This is a slow month because of the rain," he said.

The existing two-lane Bangalore-Mysore SH is one of high density traffic with some 18,000-20,000 passenger cars travelling each day along the highway and also sees over 800 fatal accidents a year.

The State-owned Karnataka Road Development Corporation has taken up the widening through a HUDCO loan of Rs 300 crore and has scheduled the completion by May 2006. Running barely 4-5 km alongside SH 17 will be the private promoted toll road, the Rs 2000-crore Bangalore-Mysore expressway.

KRDC has awarded Soma a direct contract for the Rs 116-crore phase 2 from 82.5 km to 135.35 km. This excludes a nine-km stretch between Maddur and Mandya that will be handled by the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) under an ADB-assisted project.

Phase 1 covering 62 km is being implemented on BOOT basis by a consortium of three engineering companies including Nagarjuna, Maytas Infrastructure and KMC. The stretch will be transferred to KRDC after eight years.

Phase 2 involves construction of three major bridges across the Cauvery and the Lokapavani rivers, 24 minor bridges, straightening of 19 curves, 22 bus bays and two truck lay-byes, Mr Maganti told Business Line.

SH17 is the second major road project that the Rs 270-crore Soma Enterprises has bagged in recent years.

It recently completed the Rs 300-crore, 80-km Vijayawada stretch as part of the Golden Quadrilateral connecting the metros.

"We have pitched for quite a few contracts for the North-South-East-West Corridor and are hopeful of some of them," Mr Maganti said.

With already 16 projects with Rs 1600 crore across the country in irrigation, roads and highways sectors and an annual growth rate of 30 per cent, Soma Enterprises, he said, was eyeing a turnover of Rs 500 crore in the next two years.

This will be largely driven by the six-year Rs 1100-crore hydel project it has undertaken at Subansiri in Arunachachal Pradesh; the 2000-mw project, when completed, will be the biggest such project in the country.

It has been involved in the Mumbai-Pune expressway, Noida-Greater Noida expressway and the Koyna hydroelectric project among others.