TRS to pressurise Centre for roads

Hyderabad: The TRS government has decided to intensify its pressure on the Centre to grant permission to take up construction of roads which were already sanctioned for the state.

TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar had written a letter to Union Minister Mr Nitin Gadkari, questioning him why the construction of the announced roads in Telangana state was not taken up. He cautioned that “if the central government fails in responding to this issue, then the TRS will hold a protest in the coming budget session of the Parliament.”

While addressing a press conference at in Telangana Bhavan in the state capital, he said that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had announced new national highways for Andhra Pradesh but no new roads for Telangana.  Making it clear that the TRS did not have objections to the announcement of roads for Andhra Pradesh, he said, however, that the Centre should provide roads to Telangana as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act 2014.

Maintaining that the roads would lead to eradicating poverty in Telangana state, the TRS MP demanded that the Centre speed up the laying of roads it had sanctioned and also grant approval to all the roads including the Regional Ring Road for Hyderabad.

He explained that the National Highway network in Telangana was grossly inadequate and not on par with AP and many other states in India.

The Karimnagar MP said that through his letter, he brought to the notice of Mr Gadkari that several representations were made to him and in addition, R&B officials had already given a presentation before the secretary of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

He said that the Centre had in principle agreed to the Regional Ring Road (RRR) and despite the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s letter accepting the proposal of the Centre to bear 50 per cent of cost for land acquisition and utility shift by the state government, the Standing Finance Committee had not sanctioned the upgrade of 25 state roads as national Highways including the RRR.