Greenfield Express Highway: NHAI agrees to reduce width to 60 mt from 70 mt
Khammam: Farmers seeking less of land acquisitions for the Greenfield Express Highway (GFH) and increase in compensation for their land have met with partial success on two counts.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has agreed to reduce the width of GFH to 60metres from the proposed 70metres. With this, the farmers will be able to protect 350 acres of their land in Khammam district.
The GFH has a length of 167km from Ponnekallu near Khammam to Devarapalli in West Godavari district.
This is one among the eight GFH projects taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Delhi to Agra and Chennai to Salem GFH projects are among them. The project requires 16 acres of land for each kilometre and the GFH will run four metres high from the ground.
Kasara Rajasekhar Reddy, a farmer who is losing five and a half acres of land, said that nearly 200 farmers will be benefited by the present decision. “Even the Hyderabad to Vijayawada highway is only 50 metres wide. We asked NHAI to consider our demand and it responded favourably,” he said.
The demand of the farmers to increase the acquirement price for their lands has also been met. The NHAI and the central government agreed in principle to give Rs 25 lakh per acre as compensation. Earlier, it was only Rs 12 lakh.
In Chintalapudi in West Godavari district, the current land price is Rs 8 lakh per acre but the farmers will get Rs 25 lakh per acre as per the NHAI guidelines, farmers noted.
The farmers of Khammam district will get the same price. Farmer Devarapalli Ravi said, “We are trying to get Rs 32 lakh per acre and efforts are on for this.”
Interestingly, the GFH will not have approach roads like national highways. It will have four toll gates in Khammam district including in Maddupalli in Khammam Rural mandal, Wyra, Muthagudem in Penuballi mandal and Vemsoor.
NHAI official Durga Prasad said that there is no entry for cattle and people to GFH and the sides of the road will be closed with grills.
