Drive to temporary Secretariat a nightmare

Comfort and glitter associated with the metro life, the road leading to temporary Secretariat is not a bed of roses. The Secretariat employees, who came from Hyderabad, were in for a bumpy ride. While 2,000 odd employees took the RTC special buses to reach the Secretariat, some used personal transport as well.

The Karakatta road along the Krishna river, where the Chief Minister’s residence is located is a single road and is reserved for the movement of Ministers and the other VIPs, for security reasons. There are two other link roads connecting Velagapudi; via Undavalli, Penumaka, Krishnayapalem and Mandadam from the old Guntur-Vijayawada road and the other from Mangalari that joins Krishnayapalem. These two roads are narrow, passing through the thickly populated villages.

It was a chock-o-block on the stretch from Penumaka to Krishnayapalem, as the road was narrow, laden with potholes and margins caved in for want of blacktopping. The buses carrying the employees were caught in traffic snarls, while the two-wheelers did a balancing act.

The situation is expected to worsen on Tuesday, with all employees reporting for duties at the new workplace. “I took the road from Mangalagiri to Krishnayapalem via Inavole. The ride was smooth only up to Krishnayapalem”, commented Venkatasubbaiah, an employee, who came on a two-wheeler.

The government has proposed to build a six-lane express highway to link the seed capital from the Kolkata-Chennai national highway at a cost of Rs 250 crore. The project failed to move ahead, as the government revisited its plans to make it an eight-lane highway.

“We hoped to see some improvement in our roads at least because of the Secretariat coming up in our neighbourhood. But the officials are not bothered to even cover the potholes in the run up to the inaugural event,” lamented a resident of Krishnayapalem.

Caption: Traffic logjam on narrow road leading to temporary Secretariat near Krishnayapalem.

By G Nagaraja