Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy has instructed the officials to ensure that all gram panchayats including the newly-formed panchayats are connected to their mandal headquarters with BT roads, and there shouldn’t be any village without road connectivity.
During a review meeting with officials on the regional ring road (RRR) and other road and highway projects held on Friday, January 3, the chief minister asked the officials to ensure that roads were laid keeping in mind the future needs and possibility of expanding those roads.
Allotting Rs 1,000 crore for improving rural road connectivity, he asked the officials to release Rs 150 crore every month till the end of June in phases, to complete those works.
HAM System
Revanth Reddy stated that the roads and building department would develop 12,000 km road network under the (Hybrid Annuity Model) HAM system and another 17,700 km would be laid by the panchayat raj department. The old districts would be taken as a unit for the construction of these roads.
The chief minister ordered that the road work needed to be carried out with the same quality standards by the two departments, and that the officials needed to take action by hiring consultancies and preparing detailed project reports (DPR). He directed the officials to complete the laying of these roads within three years.
Repair of damaged roads and bridges during floods
Revanth Reddy also ordered the damaged roads in flood-affected areas to be repaired, and the collapsed bridges to be rebuilt immediately. He asked the finance department officials to immediately release the state government’s share of funds for the construction and repair of those roads and to obtain the matching grant from the Centre.
Forest clearances for various national highway projects
He also directed the officials to take steps to obtain forest clearances for the Nagpur-Vijayawada (NH-163G) highway, the Armor-Jagityal-Mancherial highway (NH-63), and the Jagtial-Karimnagar (NH-563) highways passing through Mancherial, Peddapalli, Jayashankar Bhupalpalli, Warangal, Hanamkonda, Mahabubabad, and Khammam, as well as for the construction of roads in left-wing extremism affected areas by the Sankranthi festival.
The chief minister asked principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Dobriyal why the forest department was putting hurdles for the construction of roads that were useful to the people. The PCCF replied saying there were problems due to non-compliance with some regulations in the past.
Observing that such problems could be solved at the state level, the chief minister suggested that issues concerning the Union forest and environment ministry needed to be submitted in the form of a report immediately.
Coordination between R&B, forest departments
For matters related to clearances for forest lands for road projects, he asked the roads and buildings, and the forest department to work in coordination. He asked the departments to assign one official from each of those departments to entirely focus on the issues of forest clearances.
If they couldn’t be resolved, he asked the R&B and forest ministers to go to Delhi to meet the Union minister and officials concerned, to obtain permissions.
Radial roads between ORR and RRR
The chief minister said that the construction of radial roads needed to be undertaken without any interruption to 11 roads connecting Hyderabad. He also felt that the government lands needed to be made available near the radial roads so that they could be conducive to industrial development while connecting the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and Regional Ring Road (RRR).
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