Naarketpally, March 22: The Hyderabad-Vijayawada section of National Highway-9 is being widened to four lanes in the first phase and to six lanes later.
Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways RPN Singh laid the foundation stone for the widening work at Narketpally in Nalgonda district today. Chief Minister K Rosaiah and Union Minister for Urban Development S Jaipal Reddy were present.
Under the National Highways Development Projects (NHDP) Phase-II, widening of 181.50-km-long stretch of the road will be completed in 30 months at a cost of Rs 1,170 crore. The contract has been awarded to the GMR group which has built the Hyderabad international airport at Shamshabad.
Service roads to a length of 26 km and six bypasses will be laid at Narketpally, Nakrekal, Kodad, Akupamula, Sher Mohammedpet and Nawabpet.
Two road underbridges, 45 minor bridges, 17 underpasses for vehicles and 28 for cattle, 58 bus shelters and wayside amenities for travellers are the other highlights of the project.
Singh said that building roads was tantamount to building a nation.
“Andhra Pradesh has received special attention of the Central Government in the matter of development of national highways,” he said. Singh said that under NHDP Phase-III, about 525 km of national highways has been identified in the State for four-laning on BOT basis. At present, Andhra Pradesh has 4,539 km length of national highways, out of which 2,380 km is maintained by NHAI. Four-laning of 1,024 km length of NH-5 (Golden Quadrilateral) has already been completed.
Under the North-South corridor project, a length of 317-km road is completed and a length of 377 km is nearing completion with four-lane width.
The 841-km-long NH-9, which originates at Pune Maharashtra, runs through Karnataka and ends at Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh. It runs covers 336 km in Maharashtra, 75 km in Karnataka and 430 km in AP.
The chief minister said that in any country roads indicated development.
Road development in any place led to development of backward region, he added.
PENSIONS : The chief minister said social security pensions would be increased from 74 lakh to 80 lakhs in the next ten days.
Sufficient funds will be allocated to complete the Udaya Samudram project in about two years.
Ministers Galla Aruna Kumari, K Venkat Reddy and M Mukesh Goud were also present.
–Agencies