The Road Transport and Highways Ministry on Tuesday announced a mega road and highways project in Andhra Pradesh. Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Sarvey Sathyanarayana said that 1,817 km of new National Highways will be developed at the cost of Rs5,000 crore through PPP Model in the State.
“We will spend about Rs5,000 crore in a phased manner and will complete almost 10,000 km National Highways in AP in the next 3-5 years,” Sathyanarayana said. At present, there are over 81,500 km of National Highways in the country of which 6,354 km are in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Of this, 485 km of NH were notified in August-September 2012 and are stretches of the various lengths forming part of NH no 326, 67 ext 167, 42 and 150. Rest of the 1,332 km State roads to be developed in to National Highways was notified last month and they include Sironcha-Mallampalli-Tungaturthi-Chalakurthi-Kanigiri-Renigunta (643 km), Sangareddy-Nanded Akola (141 km), Mydukur-Proddatur-Jammalamadugu-Gooty (160 km) and Hyderabad-Srisailam-Thokapalle (280 km).
When asked about the rationale behind this conversion, the MoS said that it is mainly to cater to the increasing population for public convenience and betterment and that the State Governments may not do it due to financial constraints.