The long-pending demand of construction of a flyover at the entrance of Sri Kanaka Durga temple ghat road in the city turned into a burning issue and political parties started blaming each other over their failure to construct it.
The demand for the construction of the flyover at the entrance of Durga temple ghat road is pending for that past several decades as the National Highway No. 9 between Vijayawada and Hydera-bad passes through the road causing frequent traffic jams and accidents in the city.
As a result, the residents of several areas of One Town, including Bhavani-puram, Vidyadhara-puram, RTC Colony and Gollapudi demanded the immediate construction of the flyover.
The flyover turned into an election promise for all political parties. But the proposal has not materialised so far.
With the mounting pressure from all sections, the minister for secondary education, Mr K. Partha-saradhi, approached the then union minister of transport Mr Kamalnath and convinced him over the necessity of a flyover on the National Highway passing through the city. Immediately after coming from Delhi, the minister announced that the union minister announced Rs.36 crore for the flyover.
But MP Mr Lagadapati Rajagopal stated that there was no such proposal with the union government and there was no chance of constructing a flyover in the city as the National Highway Authority is planning an outer ring road.
As the Union Ministry of Transport allotted Rs.2,000 crore for an outer ring road for Vijayawada to divert the traffic on National Highway No. 9 Hyderabad-Vijayawada and No. 5 Chennai-Kolkota, the MP said that the flyover was not possible. The failure of ruling party leaders in getting a flyover attracted criticism from their own party men.
The Telugu Desam leaders led by West constituency in-charge Mr Budha Venkanna launched a relay fast and signature campaign demanding construction of flyover at the temple ghat road entrance.
Telugu Desam politburo member Mr K. Yerrannaidu also visited the relay fast camp of Mr Venkanna recently and criticised the ruling party leaders for their failure to construct the flyover to ease the traffic congestion in the city.
