Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh has given an in-principle nod for connecting state capital Raipur to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh via a new road route.

The neighbouring state’s Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has proposed to link the two major cities through a national highway.

Review meeting

“While chairing a review meeting of the state’s Public Works Department (PWD) here on Monday, Singh had a detailed discussion on the proposal,” an official here said.

The department officials informed him that the Andhra Pradesh government had proposed to link Raipur to Vizianagram-Vishakhapatnam through a new road via Kurud to Nagri (Sihawa) area of Chhattisgarh and Nabarangpur of Odisha, and declare it as a national highway, the official said.

“The Chief Minister expressed happiness that the proposed national highway will link three states -- Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh,” he said.

At present, the distance between Raipur and Visakhapatnam via Jagdalpur (Bastar) is nearly 600 km while the proposed route will shorten it by 200 km, he added.

At the meeting, it was informed that the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister had sent a proposal in this context to Union Minister of Road Transport and Highway Nitin Gadkari in February this year and simultaneously requested his Chhattisgarh counterpart to consider it, the official said.

Nearly 164 km of the proposed road falls in Chhattisgarh, of which 132 km will be developed as two-lane while the remaining 32 km will be single lane.

Green clearance

“A part of the proposed route from Kurud passes through forest land. Hence, the formalities related to forest clearance and others should be completed soon so that the work may proceed,” the official quoted the Chief Minister as saying in the meeting.

It was informed in the meeting that PWD has set the target of completing construction of 28 roads of 1,526 km by March 2018, at the cost of ₹12,266 crore.

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