Sangareddy: The traffic flow on the National Highway-65 has seen a fivefold increase in Sangareddy district, which has prompted the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to initiate a project to widen the existing four-way highway into a six-lane road within a couple of years.
NHAI’s Road and Buildings officials said the traffic on NH-65 in the district had touched one lakh vehicles per day as against just 20,000 vehicles per day in 2007 when it was first developed into a four-lane road.
Now, the road will be developed taking into consideration the vehicular flow increase for the next 20 to 30 years. The number of vehicles passing along the highway was expected to increase to 1.5 lakh vehicles per day in the next two decades.
Since the busy Mumbai-Hyderabad route has been witnessing constant traffic congestion at different places from Madinaguda to Sangareddy, the NHAI had roped in JC Technocrats to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for expanding the road into a six-lane one.
Officials said the DPR was sent to the union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, seeking a Rs.1,200 crore grant for the widening of the 31km stretch of NH-65 from Madinaguda to Sangareddy. The stretch will have no traffic signals except a few underpasses to allow local traffic cross the road.
As part of decongesting the traffic on the highway, the construction of a 1.63 km-flyover was already grounded from Vijetha Super Market in Madinaguda to Jyothi Theatre in Ashok Nagar. The flyover is expected to ease the traffic congestion at Lingampally junction.
While vehicles that were heading towards Lingampally and BHEL Township would pass under the flyover, the Mumbai-Hyderabad traffic would have to take the flyover being constructed with a budget of Rs.90 crore.