State Urges Centre to Speed up Work on Sileru Bridge.

With the Telangana Government taking its own time to construct the bridge over river Sileru, the State Government has sought the intervention of the Centre.

The river bridge near Motu, as part of the Vijayawada-Ranchi corridor scheme in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts, was approved by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in 2013 and the work order was given to then Andhra Pradesh Government.

The 250-metre bridge, estimated to cost Rs. 33 crore by the MoRTH, is hanging fire due to non-cooperation by the Telangana Government.

Chief Secretary G C Pati has written a letter to the Secretary of MoRTH requesting him to transfer the construction work of the bridge to the State Government.

In September, the Chief Secretary had written to his Telangana counterpart Rajiv Sharma to expedite the construction work by removing bottlenecks of the project. Since the project is yet to start, Pati has expressed the readiness of the State to construct the bridge.

The bridge project on Malkangiri-Motu-Bhadrachalam road was initially approved in 2009 as part of the Road Requirement Plan (RRP) in LWE-affected States where strengthening of road communication is considered key to control the spread of Naxalites.

Meanwhile, the road from Malkangiri to Motu has already been improved under the Vijayawada-Ranchi corridor scheme and the bridge is essential to provide a complete inter-State connectivity to both Telangana and Chhattisgarh and maintenance of law and order in the Maoist-affected region.


THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS