Centre's indifferent attitude irks Telangana

Hyderabad: The TS government is miffed over the Centre's indifferent attitude in sanctioning highways under the AP State Reorganisation Act 2014 and sanction of funds for repairing the damaged highways.

The government feels that despite of writing several letters to the Centre and state R&B Minister V Prashant Reddy meeting Union Minister Nithin Gadkari many times in this regard, there has been no positive response from the Centre.

According to a study conducted by the R&B wing, the highways owned by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), on a stretch of 435 km were completely ruined due to heavy rains and poor maintenance in the recent months. The state R&B department has sought Rs 300 crore from the Centre to repair the roads.

State Special Chief Secretary Sunil Sharma wrote letters to the Union ministry in August first week urging the Centre to release funds for repairs, but there has been no response so far. Nearly 50 per cent of 23 national highways were in bad shape. One of the busiest highways with huge vehicular traffic in the country between Hyderabad-Vijayawada (National Highway - 69) also suffered major surface damage on a large stretch. About 30-km stretch from the city is being maintained by the NHAI. The NHAI is the authority to monitor the quality and safety of the roads on a regular basis. In the recent months, the authority has stopped the survey of roads. As a state partner, the state R&B department had taken up the responsibility of study of the highways.

The delay in the repair works caused inconvenience to the commuters on the national highways particularly on Zaheerabad-Hyderabad-Mahbubnagar-Bengaluru and Hyderabad -Vijayawada which are lifeline for commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle movement in Telangana, officials said. If the Centre does not take immediate steps, road accidents could increase, they said.

The officials pointed out that the Centre has approved new national highways on 3,155-km stretch after the formation of Telangana. But the Union ministry notified only 1,388 km as highways. Even for this notified projects, it had not released its share of 50 percent funds, the officials said.