Bengaluru-Kolar highway will have ten lanes to meet growing traffic, freight needs

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to make the Bengaluru–Kolar section of NH-75 a 10-lane roadway due to the increase in freight traffic from the prosperous industrial areas east of Bengaluru and the growing congestion for everyday commuters.

In addition to providing relief to hundreds of motorists caught in bottlenecks every day, the enlarged roadway, which has two service lanes on either side and six central lanes, will help long-term regional growth.

Beginning near Kolathur, where NH-75 intersects with two significant new corridors—the partially opened Bengaluru–Chennai Expressway and the Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR) from Dabaspet to Hoskote—the project will stretch from Hoskote, some 32 kilometers from Bengaluru, to the Andhra Pradesh border. Within Karnataka, the combined network will span 69 kilometers. Since NHAI currently owns the necessary land, construction should start right now. To guarantee continuous flow, access-controlled entry and exit points are also being examined.

The corridor is under strain from both regional freight and local traffic. The Hoskote toll plaza now handles over 45,000 vehicles daily, while KR Pura–Hoskote stretch continues to be one of the city’s worst traffic choke points. A long-discussed elevated corridor along this segment may still be taken up, pending clearance from NHAI headquarters.

In a related development, an 800-metre flyover at Katamanallur — long delayed by issues ranging from soil conditions to service road construction — is finally nearing the finish line. Meanwhile, a 20-km stretch connecting the Bengaluru–Chennai Expressway from Hoskote to the Tamil Nadu border near Hosur is also close to completion. Once operational, the link will connect vehicles from Hosur to the STRR stretch between Dabaspet and Hoskote, effectively forming a seamless outer ring road around Bengaluru — a vital link for industrial movement and inter-state traffic alike.