Centre okays Regional Ring Road for Hyderabad

New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy on Monday said that the Centre gave an in-principle approval for the development of a regional ring road (RRR), which will prove to become a gamechanger for the development trajectory of Hyderabad.

He addressed media after leading a delegation comprising BJP OBC Morcha national president Dr K Laxman, BJP National vice-president D K Aruna and others representing Telangana met Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari in Delhi on Monday. He said that the BJP had been pursuing the RRR with the union transport ministry for a long time and a series of meetings were held on the subject by the minister. And, "We are happy to know that the Centre had given in-principle approval for the RRR, which will cover about 40 per cent of population and it will prove to be a gram changer in the development and enhancing the brand image of Hyderabad further," he added.

The Minister said that currently, Hyderabad has an Outer Ring Road (ORR) and the proposed northern stretch RRR of 30-50 km from the ORR would be developed for a distance of 158 km. He said that the RRR would have northern and southern arms, and the Centre had given its approval for the northern stretch of the project. It would cover Sangarreddy, Narasapur, Toopran, Gajwel, Jagdevpur Bhongir, and end at Coutuppal on NH-65. Covering from Sanga Reddy to Yadadri up to Choutuppal, it will be developed as the new national highway 161AA. The tentative construction cost of it will be Rs 7,561 crore, another Rs 1,961 crore would be required for land acquisition, making the total cost of the project to be Rs 9,522 crore. Including administrative costs, the total project cost will touch Rs 10,000 crore for the development of the northern arm of the RRR.

Kishan Reddy said that a request was made for sanction of the southern arm of the RRR, from Choutuppal (on HB-65), Ibrahimpatnam, passing through Kandukur, Amangal, Shadnagar Chevella, Shankerpally till Sangareddy. The 182 km of the southern stretch covers all these towns and forming the completion of the RRR with greenfield alignment. The southern arm costs about Rs 4,632 crore and land acquisition cost around Rs 1,748 crore. The total estimated cost of the southern arm would be around Rs 6,481 crore.

The Minister observed that the RRR would help to bypass the traffic from the national highways of Pune-Mumbai, Nagapur-Delhi, Jagdevpur, Macherla, Nagarjunasagar, Srisilam and Bangaluru highways without entering the city. This would not only reduce pollution, traffic congestion, but also save transportation time and fuel costs.

That apart, the RRR would improve the brand image of Hyderabad with its economic potential of attracting investments into the proposed development of logistics park and would boost employment generation as new industries would come up. Also, cold storages development, agri and food processing industries, hotels, entertainment, recreation, pharma and other sectors would have a suitable ecosystem for attracting investments.

The RRR would be much helpful to the satellite townships, employees, working communities. Besides, the total Rs 17,000 crore project would facilitate for new townships, industrial townships, cities to come up giving a fillip to the real estate sector. He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for sanctioning the project. He said that Gadkari assured to complete the first phase of the project within three years from the time of completing the land acquisition. He asked the Telangana Sstate government to speed up the land acquisition process for the early completion of the RRR project.