Telangana: Mandals have 2-lane roads to district headquarters

HYDERABAD: The Telangana government has developed 5,453 km of roads in the last six years by spending Rs 7,463 crore.
Officials of the roads and buildings department, on the occasion of the state formation day on Tuesday, said one of the main targets set by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was to improve road connectivity from Hyderabad to district headquarters and from district headquarters to mandal headquarters and from mandal headquarters to every village.
“As on date, there are double-lane roads from all the mandals to their respective district headquarters,” a senior R&B official said. When Telangana was formed on June 2 six years ago, there were no bitumen blacktop double-lane roads from 143 mandals to their respective district headquarters. “The government had released Rs 2,518 crore and 1,875 km of single-lane roads had been converted into double-lane roads,” he said.
Even the panchayat raj department has improved the road connectivity from mandal headquarters to every village.
“A large number of roads were either not there or not repaired for years. About 10,000 km of muddy roads have been transformed into BT roads spending Rs 9,000 crore, making them motorable. The objective is to ensure that RTC buses and other modes of transportation are able to operate in the villages,” said an official.
Sources said of the 7,554 km of state roads (total cost Rs 11,257 crore), work on the remaining 2,101 km is being taken up. The R&B department was able to convince the Centre and get 3,150 km of new national highways sanctioned in Telangana in the last six years.
Several two-lane roads had been developed into four-lane roads from district headquarters to Greater Hyderabad. Of the total 26 major bridges, including those planned on Manjira, Godavari, Maneru, Pranahitha, Munneru, Musi, Tungabhadra, among other rivers, the government has been able to complete 17 bridges, officials said.