Govt shelves plan to set up rural road devpt corpn

Hyderabad: The Telangana State government has dropped the proposal to constitute a separate “Telangana Rural Road Development Corporation,” according to sources. This followed the Panchayat Raj Department assessment that such a corporation cannot be financially viable.

• Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, however, has directed the officials to start the process of building rural road network in week days’ time

The government had originally proposed to constitute the Corporation for the development of road network and carry out repairs in the villages. Though the government intended to set up the corporation last year itself, it deferred the decision and now it had decided to drop the proposal.

The rural roads in the State are in a bad shape and requires not less than Rs 5,000 crore for repairs. The roads are maintained by the Panchayat Raj Department. For the development of 20,000 kilometres of highways, the Panchayat Raj Department it would require another Rs 200 crore.

According to an official, it was decided that Rs 2,400 crore would be spent on carrying out repairs to blacktop roads in next two years. Another Rs 250 crore estimated for the improvement of culverts and bridges. Things, however, had not moved forward. In fact, the Chief Minister was understood to have expressed his displeasure over the laxity on the part of the officials. KCR, the source said, had now given one week time for calling tenders and another one week to assign the work order.