T Harish Rao meets Nitin Gadkari, seeks funds

Hyderabad: Irrigation minister Mr T. Harish Rao on Monday met Mr Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for transport, highways, water resources and river management, in New Delhi and urged him to release the funds for irrigation pending for the last quarter and to allocate seven National Highways in Telangana.

Mr Rao also submitted a letter to Mr Gadkari, stating that the Rajivsagar Dummugudem project was renamed as Sitarama project and hence it was not a new project. “Sitarama project is not a new scheme. The state government has re-engineered it,” said Mr Rao.

“I told Mr Gadkari that we were yet to receive funds for Bhima, Nilwai, Ralivagu, Mathadivagu and Komram Bhim projects and pending amount was '60 crore. Mr Gadkari responded positively and asked the officials to release the funds. We have asked the Central minister for allocate seven national highways in Telangana this fiscal. To this also, he responded positively,” said Mr Rao.

Sidhipet-Elkaturti, Jangoan-Duddeda, Medak-Ellareddy, Fakirabad-Bhainsa, Sircilla-Kamareddy, Valigonda-Torrur, Nirmal-Khanapur are the highways should be included in the plan for the 2018-19 fiscal, he said. The irrigation minister also urged the Centre to speed up the works on Manoharabad-Kothapalli railway line to facilitate connectivity to Gajwel by December.

Along with MPs Vinodkumar and Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, Mr Rao also held meetings with National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) director Mr Pandey and South Central Railwys (SCR) deputy chief engineer Subramanian as well as Ravishankar from contracting firm GMR. 

He highlighted the problem of co-ordination among NHAI, SCR and GMR, which he said, was causing delay in the projects’ execution.

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