VMC proposes Andhra's longest tunnel under Simhachalam hills

The Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (VMC) has proposed to build Andhra Pradesh's longest tunnel road under the Simhachalam hills at Visakhapatnam to ease congestion in the city.

The project is to be built at an investment of about Rs 55 crore. For this, VMC has appointed Delhi-based Civil Engineering Consultancy Service (CES) as consultants to prepare the bid documents.

CES will undertake geo-technical and geo-physical studies and will give the feasibility report. The company will submit its final report by the end of October, VMC commissioner N Srikanth told Business Standard. The length of the proposed tunnel road would be around 1.6 km.

"VMC is planning to lay a 6-lane single tube tunnel or two 3-lane tube tunnels, depending on the study report and cost," he said. To fund the project, VMC will chip in with its own reserves and for the remaining, it will approach the Centre and financial institutions.

Over the last six years, the density of population has nearly doubled in Visakhapatnam. Several hundreds of apartments have come up in the last three years and thousands of independent houses have been converted into group houses. Even the hills have been occupied.

Moreover, due to relaxation in the Urban Land Ceiling Act (ULP) huge apartments have come up on several vacant lands, which are under ULC dispute.

The government is constructing three-storeyed houses in slums to accommodate slum dwellers. Owing to high population density, the ground water levels are depleting fast. As on date, about 80 per cent of the wells and borewells have gone dry in the city.

These have resulted in sanitation and drainage problems. Keeping these in the mind, the government is seriously planning to complete this project at the earliest. Once the tunnel road is completed, the city will expand to new areas, and the journey time too will come down, he said.

The project has also fueled the land prices at the other side of Simhachalam hills which till some months back was available at Rs 800-1,000 per square yard. Now, the prices have increased to Rs 1,500-2,000 per square yard and is expected to rise further.