Bus Rapid Transit System: nod for transfer of Navy land likely

GVMC needs 1.6 acres at Marripalem for road-widening

Huts at Ramakrishnapuram opposite Central Jail against GVMC bid to demolish the dwellings with the support of police in Visakhapatnam on Monday. The ownership issue is sub judice. The GVMC wanted to remove the dwellings for BRTS project. Due to strong protest, GVMC demolition squad did not go ahead with their plan. Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

The transfer of land from the Navy to the GVMC which has taken a long time delaying the Pendurti corridor of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) may finally get the nod from the Defence Minister.

The corporation needs 1.6 acres of land at Marripalem for widening the road and it has been agreed in principle that in lieu of it, the GVMC will give 3.2 acres of land at Mudasarlova.

The 20-km Pendurti corridor has been taken up at an estimated cost of Rs.160 crore and so far Rs. 110 crore has been spent on it completing 75 per cent of the work.

The GVMC has been pursuing the land transfer to pave way for taking up the work, but in spite of the initial period of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) coming to an end, the approval still hangs fire. The scheme, however, has been extended by two years.

According sources in the GVMC, the land transfer has been approved by the Eastern Naval Command here and the Naval Headquarters at New Delhi. It has to be approved by the Secretary, Defence, and finally by the Defence Minister. “It is the strict procedure of the Defence authorities that has been causing the delay,” says a GVMC official.

Railway land

With an agreement over the railway land totalling six acres for the BRTS and the Asilmetta flyover and land given earlier reached, work has begun. However, eight structures, including a rest house and the railway parcel office, will be affected in the road-widening.

The presence of structures might lead to delay, admits the GVMC official. With the seven-acre Omkarnagar and Sewanagar tangle being almost resolved and slum-dwellers there shifted, the work is going on smoothly. In the Simhachalam corridor too, a layout for house sites for 100 families losing their dwellings at Ramakrishnapuram is being readied. While another 100 have been shifted to the houses constructed at Pineapple Colony, another 50 will also be allotted housing units there, it is learnt. With the bottlenecks being removed one by one, officials hope to complete the two corridors by the middle of 2013.