Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari made a promise to spend ₹3 lakh crore on development of National Highways infrastructure of highest standards in the Telangana State in the 10-year period between 2014 and 2024.
Speaking after foundation laying and dedication ceremony of 12 national highway projects of total 354 kilometre length, with an investment of ₹7853 crore here on Friday, Mr. Gadkari said, out of the 33 districts in Telangana, 32 are within the network of National Highways, with the exception of Peddapalli. Soon the sole district too will be brought into the network, he promised.
For the past eight years, the national highway network has been extended almost 100 per cent in Telangana, reaching 4,996 kilometres from 2511 kilometres in 2014. More connectivity will be developed in the coming days, he said.
Of the 26 Greenfield Express Highways being developed nationwide, five will pass through Hyderabad, namely Indore-Hyderabad, Surat-Solapur-Kurnool-Chennai, Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam, Nagpur-Vijayawada, and Hyderabad-Raipur, at a total cost of ₹70,000 crore, he said.
The traffic arriving into southern India from states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand would first reach Mumbai, from there to Pune, and from there would arrive via either Solapur or Kolhapur.
Now, thanks to the Delhi-Mumbai highway, for which most of the work has been completed, the time to travel between Delhi and Mumbai has been reduced to 12 hours, which will be beneficial in terms of logistics.
The Surat-Chennai network will reduce the distance by 250 kilometres for cities such as Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Kochi, Bengaluru, Mangalore, and Chennai. The Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam highway will halve the travel time, Mr. Gadkari explained.
Speaking of the Regional Ring Road project, Mr. Gadkari said Detailed Project Report is in the final stages for the first part of the project, and foundation will be laid in three months. For southern part of the project, Telangana government has promised to bear 50 per cent of the land acquisition cost, and hence, it will be considered positively, he promised.
He advised planned development along the regional ring road, with an industrial cluster and a logistic park. If land acquisition is taken care of, the NHAI will develop the logistic park, he said.
He also urged the Telangana MPs to prepare a list of ROBs and RUBs needed in any part of the state, so that the ministry can allot ₹3000 crore for the same drawn from Central Road Infrastructure Fund.
Apart from launching/laying foundation for the 12 National Highways projects, he laid foundation for seven projects to be executed through the state’s Roads & Buildings department through the ministry with CRIF funding.
Important among them are the upgradation of the existing road to a 12 lane highway of 22.5 kilometre length from LB Nagar to Malkapur, and a flyover near BHEL, which the minister advised to upgrade to a two level flyover.
Two projects, namely, four laning of NH-161 from Ramsanpalle to Mangloor at a cost of ₹1614 crore, and four laning of the stretch from Mangloor to Telangana/Maharashtra at a cost of ₹1312 crore have been dedicated to the nation.
Union Minister for Tourism, Culture and Development of North East G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of State for Road Transport V.K. Singh, Telangana Roads and Buildings Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy, and Bhongir MP and senior Congress leader Komatireddy Venkata Reddy attended the event.
