'Flyover soon at Indrakeeladri'

Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Sarve Satyanarayana has promised the people of the city to take up the construction of a flyover on National Highway No.9 at the foothill of Indrakeeladri, which had turned a bottleneck for the project, pending for a long time, was stalled despite Rs.36 crore being sanctioned, probably as the authorities felt that it need not be taken up if the Outer Bypass work was completed on the western side of the city connecting NH 9 with NH 5, but that might take another two to three years, he observed.

Responding to the problem of four toll plazas in between Vijayawada and Hyderabad on the newly widened highway, the Union Minister of State said that he had travelled on the road and a way would be found out by the NHAI foregoing its share of the toll collected to reduce the burden.

“The work was given to four contractors and all of them were entitled to collect the toll,” the Minister added.

At a press conference here on Monday, the Union Minister of State has promised that the foundation would be laid for the project very soon and work started within three months and completed within one and a half years. “We need to go to the elections in 2014 and would like to complete as many projects as possible,” Mr. Satyanarayana added.

‘Top priority’

When the reporters pointed out that Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal had opposed this project by organising a dharna, Mr. Satyanarayana said that the local politicians had represented to him as soon as he took charge of the ministry. He said that the project would be given priority and completed very soon and also promised to look into the issue of land acquisition for the four-laning of the Vijayawada-Machilipatnam portion of the National Highway No.9.

This four-laning should have started three months ago, but works had not started as land was not handed over to the contractors, but the NHAI CGM Venkata Reddy present at the press conference clarified that the District Collector Jyothiprakash had a meeting on Saturday and the issue was sorted out and 80 per cent of the land would be handed over very soon.