Gadkari praises Telangana for addressing water problems, assures to spend Rs 3 lakh crore on NHs

Hyderabad: While the State BJP leaders continue to criticise the Telangana government on various platforms and take credit for the latter’s achievements, union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said Telangana’s prosperity will lead to the progress of the nation. He was speaking after dedicating two road infrastructure projects and laying the foundation for […]

Hyderabad: While the State BJP leaders continue to criticise the Telangana government on various platforms and take credit for the latter’s achievements, union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said Telangana’s prosperity will lead to the progress of the nation.

He was speaking after dedicating two road infrastructure projects and laying the foundation for 17 national highway and CRIF projects covering a total length of 460 km at a cost of Rs 8,000 crore in the State.

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A total of 4,996 km national highway network has been laid in Telangana till March 2022 which was 2,511 km in 2014, enhancing the NH network by 2,485 km in the last eight years. He assured that it will be further increased in the future. “This is just a trailer, the complete film is yet to be unveiled,” he added.

The union Minister who addressed the gathering at the event held at GMR Arena near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad, stated that water, power, transport and communication systems were crucial for development of the country. Telangana successfully completed construction of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) to address the water problems and the results were visible to all, he added.

Observing that Hyderabad was a major IT hub and engine of the country’s economic growth, Gadkari said to make an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and achieving the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making India a USD 5 trillion economy, Telangana has also to be made prosperous and rich. “National highway infrastructure projects worth Rs 3 lakh crore will be built in Telangana by December 2024. I assure you that these roads will be equivalent with those in the United States,” he said.

The union Minister said 32 out of 33 districts in Telangana had already been linked with the NH network and the remaining one district – Peddapalli – would be connected soon. He said five out of the 26 Greenfield Express Highways being built in the country will be passing through Telangana. The government will be spending Rs 70,000 crore on these five Express Highways, namely Indore-Hyderabad, Surat-Solapur-Kurnool-Chennai, Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam, Nagpur-Vijayawada, and Hyderabad-Raipur.

Further, Gadkari said the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Regional Ring Road (RRR) project, 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 union Ministry can allot Rs 3,000 crore for the same drawn from Central Road Infrastructure Fund (CRIF).

Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Gen V K Singh, union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy, Roads and Buildings Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy and others also spoke on the occasion.