Dharwad: Darpan Jain, Commissioner, Directorate of Urban Land Transport who reviewed progress of work at the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) depot in Dharwad said the BRTS project in twin cities would be completed and buses would hit the roads on trial basis by September.

Speaking to media on Saturday after reviewing the work, Jain said though the slow pace in the implementation of the project had been causing a lot of inconvenience to the citizens it was necessary.

Laying of new roads, constructing bus shelters, railway over bridges and flyovers after shifting existing utilities besides land acquisition was taking much time. “Since the work is being carried out on an operational road with heavy traffic it is slow. However, we are doing the work on a war footing to finish it by coming August,” he said.

HD BRTS is an ambitious project involving 20 km corridor and Intelligent Transport System facility. A total of 32 bus stops would be constructed between twin cities. The two central lanes would be dedicated for BRTS buses and other four lanes for mixed traffic. A total of 130 new buses would be purchased besides 30 articulated buses under the project, he said.

The revised project cost is Rs 750 Crores out of which Rs. 450 Crore has been already spent on land acquisition and other works. Around 75 acres of land has been acquired for the project, he said.

By coming June, road work would be completed and flyovers at Unkal and Navanagar and railway over bridge at Navalur by August, he said.

“Soon we will come out with a planned greenery project to plant saplings besides the BRTS corridor between Hubballi-Dharwad”, he added.