Six lane national highway near Venkatapalem kicks off

The construction work of the six-lane National Highway (NH) near Venkatapalem in Amaravati has commenced, and the contractor, Adani Group, is also ready to kick-start the works.

The project was conceived a decade ago to ease the traffic congestion in the city of Vijayawada by constructing a bypass to the already existing National Highway through Vijayawada. The project was taken up by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) after seeing the heavy traffic congestion on Kanakadurga Varadhi, the loan flyover in operation, to handle heavy traffic between Chennai-Howrah.

The project was designed in such a way that the six-lane flyover to the NH-16 is to be constructed from Venkatapalem near Tadepalle. A 3.2 km long flyover is to land near Gollapudi on the outskirts of Vijayawada. The National Highway has proposed another bypass to avoid heavy traffic coming into Vijayawada, NH-65, from Gollapudi to Gannavaram.

Before the commencement of the work, TDP came into power after the 2014 elections. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu stalled over the work of the river bridge after the announcement of the capital city of Amaravati. He wanted the flyover to be an iconic bridge and to take the additional cost from the state exchequer. Since the flyover is a direct connection to Amaravati, he wanted it to be a prestigious project. But could not finalise the designs to launch the work.

After Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy took over the government, he dropped the plans of the iconic bridge and asked NHAI to go ahead with the original flyover construction plan.

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