Visakhapatnam: The ever increasing traffic congestion at NAD Kotha Road is turning into a nightmare for commuters. With the traffic coming to a standstill on a continuous basis, particularly in the mornings and evenings, it takes many green signals for the motorists to cross the busiest stretch of the city. It was all fine till 2008-2009 before the junction, which is an intersection of NH-16 and arterial roads of the Visakhapatnam city-Pendurthi-Simhachalam-Araku, had become a bottleneck and started struggling to cope up with the increased vehicular traffic from all four directions. It is estimated that the Passenger Car Units (PCU) at the junction are almost reaching 10,000.
L.V. Krishna Murthy, a resident of 104 area of the city, explained his struggle of dropping his son to a private school near NAD junction. “The increasing number of vehicles impede traffic flow. Providing an alternative route or constructing a bridge alone can help solve the issue,” he added. Same is the situation of lakhs of employees, students and other commuters passing through the busiest junction.
On the other hand, the alternative road proposed between Gopalapatnam petrol bunk and NSTL Junction, via Laxmi Nagar, as a short-term measure still hangs in balance. The 2.5-km detour has first surfaced during the tenure of former Vizag MP Daggubati Purandeswari but the project hasn’t made any progress for technical reasons. The GVMC and the district officials have recently initiated a fresh round of talks with the NSTL (Naval Science and Technological Laboratory) officials as the road requires some from it.
It is learnt that in exchange of NSTL’s land, the district officials would provide the same extent of land near Simhachalam for the NSTL.“The district officials had also agreed to construct a boundary wall for the NSTL before taking charge of the land. Even though the NSTL had given in-principle approval, now they will form a committee to discuss the proposals,” the source said. The alternative road could ease about 50 percent traffic near NAD Junction,” the source added.
