Hyderabad: Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who also holds the finance portfolio, allocated adequate funds for expansion of Hyderabad Metro Rail and for construction of Regional Ring Road (RRR) in the budget presented in the Assembly here on Thursday.
Presenting the budget, he said one of the major problems the city is facing is the traffic and one of the ways to tackle the problem is to strengthen the public transport network and metro rail is one of the most important parts of public transport. Presently, Hyderabad has metro facilities in three corridors.
Having become wiser with the experience of first phase metro, the State government has re-examined the second phase proposals and modified them accordingly. Apart from catering to the needs of various sections of the society, the metro would enable equitable development of various parts of the city.
With these aims, the government is proposing to develop 78.4 kms of five extended corridors with an outlay of Rs.24042 crore. As part of this project, the metro will be extended to the old city and will be further connected to Shamshabad Airport.
Similarly, the government will extend the present corridors from Nagole to LB Nagar. “We also propose to develop Nagole, LB Nagar and Chandrayanagutta stations as interchange stations. We are also planning to extend the metro facility from Miyapur to Patancheru, LB Nagar to Hayathnagar,” he said.
Referring to Regional Ring Road (RRR), Bhatti said the RRR will be constructed with the standards of expressway. The land acquisition process for this project was already in progress. It will be initially constructed as a four lane highway and will be extended to lines commensurate with increase in traffic.
The region between ORR and RRR will attract industries, services and transport parks. As per initial estimates, the northern part of RRR will cost Rs 13,522 crore and southern part will cost Rs 12,980 crore.
“We have proposed Rs.1,525 crore for RRR,” he added. With regard to Outer Ring Road (ORR), he said the ORR has become the de-facto border of Hyderabad. There are many urban and rural local bodies in the region up to ORR but there is a vast difference in the civic services provided by these agencies.
Even though GHMC has a disaster management system, other regions beginning the limits of ORR do not have such a facility to tackle this problem in Telangana Core Urban Region. The government has established an integrated unit for disaster management. Apart from GHMC area, Ranga Reddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Sangareddy districts come under this new unit.
According to Bhatti, ORR is like a precious jewel around Hyderabad connecting various places around Hyderabad which resulted in the rapid growth and development of the city. Such results need to be replicated in other parts of the state which can be achieved through construction of RRR.
The northern road from Sanga Reddy-Toopran-Gajwel-Choutuppal is 158.6 kms long and the southern side it is 189 kms from Choutuppal-Shadhnagar-Sangareddy are proposed to be upgraded to facilitate their declaration as national highways.
In view of the importance of Hyderabad, its development will be the government’s priority. The GHMC, HMDA and Metro Water Works Board play a very important role in providing civic services to the population of Hyderabad.
To aid these institutes in effective and better provision of services, the State government proposed Rs.3065 crore to GHMC, Rs.500 crore to HMDA, Rs.3385 crore to Metro Water Works in the budget. Apart from these, the government proposed Rs.200 crore to HYDRAA, Rs.100 crore for extension of metro to airport, Rs.200 crore for ORR, Rs.500 crore for Hyderabad Metro Rail, Rs.500 crore for extension of Metro to Old City, Rs.50 crore for MMTS and Rs.1500 crore for Musi Riverfront project.
