Telangana: R&B Department hands full with infrastructure projects

The department had initiated road laying works covering 1,835 kilometres at an estimated cost of Rs.2,655 crore.

Hyderabad: The Roads and Buildings Department in the State has quite a busy schedule these days with multiple projects on hand.

While installation of the towering 125 feet statue of Dr BR Ambedkar adjacent to Hussain Sagar is being expedited to complete the works by April next, construction of the BR Ambedkar Secretariat complex, spread over seven lakh square feet space in seven floors, is nearing completion.

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This apart, the R&B department has been entrusted with the task of constructing new Collectorate buildings in the districts. Of the 29 Collectorate office complexes, till date, 15 office complexes have been completed and 11 Collectorate complexes works are under progress.

All these are apart from improving the road network in rural and urban areas. With the Telangana government according top priority to road connectivity right from mandal headquarters to district headquarters, the department had initiated road laying works covering 1,835 kilometres at an estimated cost of Rs.2,655 crore. Of these, works pertaining to 1,669 km have been completed since the formation of the State.

With increasing traffic, the department is executing several works to upgrade single lane roads into double lane roads. Under this initiative, in the last eight years, road works for 5,574 km were planned at a cost of Rs.10,647 crore and of these, 4,032 km were completed.

The department is also taking up strengthening and widening of old bridges constructed across water bodies and streams. To this effect, 541 old bridges were identified for strengthening and restoration works with a cost of Rs.2,763 crore and 350 bridge works have been completed in the last eight years. Panchagudi bridge works across River Godavari, Sadasivaapally bridge works across River Manair, Mattampally bridge across River Krishna were among those completed.

Similarly, improvement of rural road networks were being taken up with special focus to facilitate better connectivity with towns, hospitals, educational institutes and others. Accordingly, work on 1,308 km of roads was executed at a cost of Rs.1,205 crore since State formation.