Planning Board Vice-Chairman B. Vinod Kumar has written a letter to Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari seeking sanction of twelve national highways which were left out of the twenty-five national highways proposed for construction in Telangana.
The State government had proposed to the Centre to take up the twenty-five national highways as per an assurance to the State Reorganisation Act but only thirteen of them were cleared three years ago but works were still not grounded, Mr. Vinod Kumar said.
On the eve of the Minister inaugurating on December 21 some national highways that were approved for Telangana in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, he hoped that Mr. Gadkari would announce on the occasion the balance twelve highways that are pending for want of NITI Aayog clearance.
He said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had already offered that the State government will bear 50% of the cost of land acquisition for the thirteen highways which were approved in principle. In fact, the expenditure on land acquisition was higher than cost of civil works for the projects as land rates in State had gone up due to improved irrigation facilities.
