Better transportation to boost state economy: AP minister
Raghava Rao said AP and other states would witness a large increase in urban population in the coming years.
Visakhapatnam: AP transport minister Sidda Raghava Rao said that the AP government was striving hard to build state-of-the-art infrastructure despite the financial constraints as road connectivity and better transport modes would boost the economy.
Inaugurating the two-day seminar on urban transport corridors, organised by the Indian National Group of IABSE here on Friday, Mr Raghava Rao said AP and other states would witness a large increase in urban population in the coming years. It would touch 38 per cent from 30 per cent by 2016 and there is urgent need to strengthen transportation and other amenities to ensure quality of life.
To ensure quicker connectivity, the Centre had planned to build 55,449 km of highways, expressways, economic corridors, port connectivity and ring roads under National Highways Development Project programme in seven phases.
So far 28,630 km of various ways had been completed and the process for completing the remaining work is underway.
In AP under NHDP Phase-6, the Anantapur to Amaravati six-lane highway via Kurnool and Kadapa was to be built apart from a ring road in the AP capital region, said NHAI member (technical) D.O. Tawade Chama.
The focus of the two-day seminar was to provide elevated structures such as flyovers and metro lines to transport more people in urban areas quickly. The seminar highlighted major issues such as availability of limited space while the volume of traffic is huge and few others.