Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday chaired a meeting to review highway projects in Telangana, including the proposed Rs 15,980 crore Regional Ring Road (RRR) around Hyderabad. The ring road project comprises two parts — Rs 9,500 crore northern part and Rs 6,480 crore southern part.
Later addressing the media, Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy, who was present in the meeting, said in-principle approval has been granted for the Northern RRR, while a delegation from Telangana has requested the Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari to sanction the Southern project as well.
Kishan Reddy said Gadkari assured completion of the RRR in three years, provided land acquisition work was completed by the state. Kishan Reddy added that the 340-km project will be a game-changer for Telangana. The overall cost of the project is reportedly pegged at around Rs 16,000 crore.
The Northern and Southern parts of the proposed project will connect Sangareddy - Narsapur - Toopran - Gajwel - Jagdevpur - Choutuppal - Shadnagar.
Important national and state highways like NH-65 (Pune - Machilipatnam), NH-161 (Sangareddy - Nanded - Akola), NH-765D (Hyderabad - Medak), NH-44 (Srinagar - Kanyakumari), SH-1 (Hyderabad - Ramagundam) and NH-163 (Hyderabad - Bhopalpatnam) will also be connected through the RRR, he added.
"In total, it will cater to and serve about 40 percent of the population of the state. The project road also provides connectivity to tourist places such as Yadadri etc," Kishan Reddy said.
Once the project is constructed as an access controlled expressway, the travel time and vehicle operation costs for commercial and non-commercial vehicles will get reduced by a great extent, he said.
A number of industrial clusters, IT centres, logistics parks, pharma industries, recreational facilities, among others, are expected to get established in and around the project road which would provide a big boost to the economy of Telangana, Kishan Reddy said.