The Telangana government is yet to opt for State-wise Vehicle Tracking Platform under the Nirbhaya scheme which aims to improve safety of women using public transport.
A department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture in its report submitted to Parliament said Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were among the seven States/Union Territories which have not opted for the scheme. It wanted to know whether the Union Ministry concerned had raised the issue with the respective State governments to ascertain the reason behind their non-participation in the scheme recommended by the standing committee in its earlier report.
The Ministry, in its reply, informed the sub-committee of the Parliamentary Standing Panel that Andhra Pradesh has applied for funds for setting up the monitoring centre and they had been disbursed on March 31 this year. Telangana, however, had not applied for funds to set up the monitoring centre although several reminders were sent to the State from February last year. Efforts were under way to get the State on board, the Ministry said.
The standing panel said it desired to be apprised of the reasons, if any, furnished by the Telangana government for not applying for funds for setting up the monitoring centre. “The committee recommends that the issue may be taken up at higher levels with the State government in order to permit the implementation of the scheme in Telangana,” the report said.
According to the report, 32 projects were sanctioned for the construction of highways of 860 km length with an estimated ₹13,753 crore to Telangana during 2021-22. Of those, 14 projects spanning 408 km and estimated to cost ₹6,853 crore had been sanctioned and works on construction of 236 km had been completed at the end of the year.
The number of projects was 11 in 2020-21 spanning 284 km and costing ₹1,733 crore, but five projects covering length of 2,742 km had been sanctioned. A total length of 227 km roads were constructed during the financial year 2020-21.
