Chief secretary Anil Chandra Punetha calls for pothole-free roads in AP state

Amaravati: Chief secretary Anil Chandra Punetha directed the officials of national highways and roads and buildings departments to make all the roads in the state pothole-free by the end of this month.

He was addressing a review meeting of the two departments at the secretariat on Monday. The chief secretary said that the road construction projects undertaken on various highways and R&B roads should be completed within time-frame. “Both the departments should work in coordination to complete the projects in time,” he added.

He said that the officials should not delay handing over work to the contractors. The chief secretary reviewed the work progress of Amaravati-Anantapur Greenfield Express highway, roads in the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor, extension of National Highway 9, flyovers at Kanakadurga temple and Benz Circle among others.

R&B special chief secretary Nirab Kumar Prasad explained through a power point presentation the road works worth Rs 30,000 crore undertaken throughout the state. He said that 40 per cent of the 733 works worth Rs 7,477 crore were undertaken on state highways were completed.

District-wise regional meetings were being conducted with the joint collectors and other officials concerned to solve problems like forest land, land acquisition, utility shifting and others.

Nirab Kumar Prasad said that six roads in the Visakhapatnam-Chennai corridor were sanctioned and the Central government accorded permission to build 384 km road on Amaravati-Anantapur Greenfield Express highway.

He said that efforts were being made to make all the roads throughout the state pothole-free. Principal chief conservators of forests Rizvi and Nalini Mohan, national highways regional director Anil Dixit, Union road transport and highways representative SK Singh, R&B engineers-in-chief Y Rajiv Reddy, M Subba Rao, several chief engineers, and others officials took part in the review.