bengaluru the karnataka government on thursday ignored the rising voices of protest and decided to extend the controversial steel flyover project till the elevated road that leads to kempegowda international airportthe decision could add more fuel to the protest planned on sunday critics are opposing the project citing the jawdropping perkilometre cost and a likely huge toll on the citys green coverthe flyover was initially planned from basaveshwara circle to hebbal now it will extend till the elevated road near esteem mall bengaluru development minister kj george said the steel bridge which runs parallel to the hebbal one is expected to provide airportbound travellers a seamless and signalfree road to kiasources said the new plan follows suggestions from the public citizens argued a flyover that terminates at hebbal would only be shifting the bottleneck further down the road hence the extension of the project a senior bureaucrat said the bangalore development authority bda which is imple menting the project hasnt revised the estimate yet keeping the construction cost of rs 267 crore a kilometre a backoftheenvelope calculation suggests the project expenditure will go up from rs 1791 crore to rs 1900 crorein an indicator of the governments undue haste or earnestness the bda has launched preparatory work on the flyover project conducting an internal survey along with landacquisition and engineering departments the survey will suggest the extent of private land required for the projectwith green warriors launching a fierce campaign against the project karnataka urban development department additional chief secretary mahendra jain told toi that they will save trees and the green cover to the extent possible i understand the cost of losing the green cover to this project well see if we can save more trees he saidno metro linkgovernment officials ruled out a metro link to the airportthe urban development department weighed the option along ballari road before giving it a burial as they cant afford a differentiallevel interchange at the cubbon park station a department official said we could not add another level at the station for a new metro line to run till the airport officials said the government discussed widening of the road from basaveshwara circle to hebbal but abandoned it as the stretch is witnessing heavyduty real estate activities