The Inner Ring Road, which is fraught with land acquisition and other problems is expected to be completed by December 2013 and the widening of National Highway No. 9 between Durga Bathing Ghat and the foot of Indrakeeladri Hill can be taken up only after that, Minister for Secondary Education Kolusu Parthasarathi has said.
The Minister along with Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal, Vijayawada Central MLA Malladi Vishnu and Vijayawada West MLA Vellampalli Srinivas reviewed the progress of the Rs.120-crore Inner Ring Road project from Nainavaram Flyover to Ramavarapadu Circle on Thursday. They inspected the work in progress with a delegation of reporters in tow.
The MP and Minister reviewed the progress of the Inner Ring Road in the light of the ‘maha dharna’ conducted by former Chief Minister and Telugu Desam President N. Chandrababu Naidu. The MP and MLAs participated in a separate meeting to counter the protest of the Telugu Desam Party.
The TDP has been demanding that work on widening of the road, to reduce traffic congestion, be taken up immediately, but Mr. Rajagopal has been contesting this on the grounds that it would lead to a chaos as the road at the point had to be closed for an indefinite period of time, so it had to wait until the completion of the Inner Ring Road.
The Minister said that it would be practical to take up road widening only after completion of the Inner Ring Road so that the traffic on the National Highways could be diverted on to it.
‘Obstacles’
Closing of the road between Durga Bathing Ghat and Indrakeeladri Hill on which was located the Kanakadurga Temple would result in the heavy vehicular traffic entering all the main streets of the city resulting in absolute chaos and congestion, Mr. Rajagopal said.
He said that this was exactly what the TDP wanted because this would attract the wrath of the public on the Congress. There were, however, several obstacles to the completion of the Inner Ring Road.
There were a few stretches where land acquisition could be done because of litigation. Land owners have approached courts for relief. The construction of the rail over bridge (ROB) in Gunadala was stalled for a while because of problem with the Contractor. But work has been resumed with a new contractor. The UDA vice-chairman Vijay Kumar has said that the project would be completed by December 2013.
