Infrastructure
Bengaluru-Vijayawada project will reduce travel time by five hours. (Yamuna Expressway/Tushar Gupta)
The union government plans to build a Greenfield Access Controlled Corridor linking Vijayawada and Bengaluru.
The highway will connect two major cities in the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (AP), reducing travel distance by 75 km and travel time by five hours.
The Bengaluru-Kadapa-Vijayawada Greenfield Access Controlled Corridor is part of the Bengaluru-Vijayawada Expressway project.
The four-to-six-lane highway will be access-controlled, with feeder roads connecting at strategic points.
Union Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari, stated in a tweet on 28 September that the highway will connect the two cities via Kadapa (AP). The corridor would improve connectivity to existing and future economic and industrial nodes like Guntur, Kadapa, and Koparthy.
The 342-kilometre Greenfield Highway will cost Rs 13,600 crore to build.
According to the Road Transport and Highways Ministry, the project will be finished in 2025-2026, reports the Indian Express.
Bengaluru-Vijayawada Expressway
Under Bharatmala Pariyojana (BMP) Phase-2, this project's mix of brownfield upgrade (36 per cent of the total) and greenfield (64 per cent of the total) construction will be carried out.
The proposed project is divided into three sections:
Greenfield Section: Addanki to Kodikonda, (AP), 342 km
Brownfield Upgrade: NH-16 from Addanki to Vijaywada (AP), 113 km
Brownfield Upgrade: NH-44 from Bengaluru (Karnataka) to Kodikonda (AP), 73 km
Industrial hubs in Guntur, Prakasam, Kurnool, Kadapa, and Anantapur—all within a 700-km range—can access Bengaluru Airport via the access-controlled multi-lane highway quickly.
A further benefit of the new project is that it connects Bengaluru with Rayalaseema region of AP, which is far located from major airports like Vijayawada or Hyderabad.