HYDERABAD: Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao on Saturday asked Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy to prevail upon Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to hand over the Defence lands required for construction of two skyways -- from Patny to Kompally and from Jubilee Bus Station to Turkapally.
The request is not new; over the last six years, the State government has been persistently asking successive Defence Ministers Arun Jaitley, Manohar Parikar, Nirmala Sitharaman and now Rajnath Singh, for allocation of defence lands for construction of the skyways.
While the response has been cold till now, the State government hopes that Rajnath Singh would be more amenable towards this Union Cabinet colleague and heed Kishan Reddy’s request.
Rama Rao was speaking at the inauguration of the 2.70 km Shaikpet flyover by Telangana Public Health and Municipal Engineering Department Engineer-in-Chief R Sridhar in the presence of Kishan Reddy.
Addressing the gathering, the Minister said that while a series of development works were taken up in Greater Hyderabad limits, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board was lagging behind in developmental works as the proposed projects could not move forward due to the Defence Ministry not handing over the required lands which are under its control.
He also urged Kishan Reddy to take up with the Home Ministry the allocation of a land parcel belonging to the MHA at Rasoolpura junction that would facilitate the State government to take up the flyover under SRDP at the earliest.
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Rama Rao also said that as many as 21 roads in the Secunderabad Cantonment under Local Military Authority (LMA ) were closed against the rules of the Ministry of Defence and should be opened for the general public.
He requested Kishan Reddy to bring this issue to the notice of Rajnath Singh and get it sorted out and see that closed roads are opened to the people.
Rama Rao also requested Kishan Reddy to take interest and push for Hyderabad being recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Speaking on the occasion, Kishan Reddy said that the Union government was committed to the development of Hyderabad. He said that a number of roads have been sanctioned for Telangana by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past six years. Work on several of these sanctioned national highways roads will begin soon with laying of foundation stone by Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Kishan Reddy said.
He also said that the Centre has written to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao asking him to provide 25 acres of land for setting up a Science City.
Kishan Reddy urged the State government to complete the land acquisition expeditiously for laying of Regional Ring Road (RRR).
He said that the Centre is extending support to the State government for development of infrastructure as the city is developing rapidly.
Rama Rao said that the State government will extend full support to the Centre for development of the Science City and RRR land acquisition. The 2.70 km flyover was built at a cost of Rs 333 crore and will ease traffic woes for over four lakh vehicles that ply on this major traffic corridor in the city.