Hyderabad: The Telangana government will press the Centre to widen the Hyderabad-Vijayawada (NH-65) and Hyderabad-Bengaluru (NH-44) national highways to eight lanes each, scaling up an earlier demand for six-lane expansion amid rising traffic on both corridors.
According to an ABN report, State Roads and Buildings Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy is expected to travel to Delhi in the third week of August to meet Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari. He is likely to present a report on current and projected traffic volumes to justify the wider carriageways.
The push comes months after Komatireddy urged the National Highways Authority of India to take NH-65 to eight lanes and had proposed a double-decker elevated corridor between LB Nagar and Hayathnagar to ease congestion on the stretch. Gadkari had earlier told the minister that a decision on widening NH-65 would be taken up at an NHAI Finance Committee meeting.
During the Delhi visit, the minister is also expected to seek early clearance for the LB Nagar-Hayathnagar double-decker corridor and for a proposed Greenfield Expressway between Hyderabad and Nagpur, positioned as an alternative to the existing Rajiv Gandhi Highway. He is likely to ask that work begin quickly on the Srisailam Elevated Corridor, which was recently handed over to the NHAI.
Andhra Pradesh has reportedly asked the Centre to develop the Hyderabad-Vijayawada stretch, currently four lanes, as a high-speed expressway rather than a conventional six-lane highway, a move officials say could cut travel time between the two capitals.
Neither the state government nor the NHAI has issued a formal statement on the proposed eight-lane upgrade.
