National Highways Authority of India no' to new structures

Anantapur: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is not taking up maintenance works nor building new structures, like flyovers, between Kurnool and Kodikonda (on the Karnataka border) due to traffic on this stretch being too sparse to yield them the funds for such constructions.

The NHAI project officials said that they had not been able to get even minimum collections from toll plazas between Bagepalli of Karnataka and Kothakota of Telangana.

There are four toll pla-zas between the two state borders - Kothakota Bypass, Gooty, Marur and Bagepalli. Heavy vehicles - more than local cars and jeeps -- would normally be big income earners for toll plazas, but the Marur toll plaza, which opened in October 2010 and Karidikonda plaza in Gooty mandal, which became operational in February 2011 have not been able to collect enough income.

"The traffic is more from Bagepalli to Bengal-uru and also Kurnool to Hyderabad, but the mid-section is very poor and is incurring losses," an NHAI official said. There was therefore no scope to take up new structures, like flyovers, he added.

This amounts to a ca-tch-22 situation of sorts as the Palasamudram Cr-oss Road in Gorantla ma-ndal is an accident zone, with vehicles between Gorantla and Hindupur crossing over to the NH-44 road. The public, inclu-ding local MP Nimmala Kishtappa had asked for a flyover at Palasam-udram cross a year ago.

While the four-lane pro-ject was formed under the Public Private Partn-ership (PPP) mode thr-ough a loan from national and international agencies, the project authorities are concentrating on toll plaza collections to repay instalments to the funding agencies.

The NHAI fears a similar situation to arise bet-ween the newly proposed Anantapur-Amaravathi six-lane highway to be built on PPP basis. The Union ministry of road transport and highways has approved a '1,000 cr-ore project to convert st-ate highways into national highways. The project is mainly aimed at connecting Anantapur to the new capital, Amaravati, via Kurnool, covering a total distance of 452 km.

Apart from connecting Anantapur to Amaravati by linking National Highway NH 44 and NH 65, the project envisages connecting NH 40 and NH 65 via Kurnool, Kadapa and Anantapur over a distance of 132 km. The existing four-lane roads would be expanded to six and eight lanes.

However, no new works have been initiated as the NHAI flouted norms, cutting down large trees during the construction of the four-lane road but not compensating the loss of green cover through reforestation.