Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jagan said on Monday that, for the first time in the history of AP, the state is spending a whopping Rs 2,205 crore to construct new roads and carry out repairs to the damaged roads in a year.
Chairing a high-level review meeting on roads and buildings department with minister Sankara Narayana and top officials at his camp office here, the chief minister said the previous government failed to pay proper attention to the maintenance of roads in the state. They got damaged in one rain.
He dismissed the criticism that the YSRC government failed to maintain the roads in good condition. “For the first time in AP, we are allocating huge amounts of Rs 2,205 crore for construction and development of roads in the state for a year.”
The officials informed the CM that they would complete the road construction and repair works by May end and said works related to construction of 33 ROBs were pending for long. “We are spending Rs 571.3 crore to complete them,” they said.
On development of the beach corridor road connecting Visakhapatnam Port to Bhimili-Bhogapuram and NH-16, the CM asked the officials to pay more attention to the design for development of a beach corridor and hoped that it would be the best in the world.
Jagan felt the need to help motorists reach Bhogapuram airport from Visakhapatnam and vice versa in a faster manner and said several tourism projects too would come up along the beach corridor.
Referring to the restrictions imposed on arrival and departure of civilian aircrafts at the Visakhapatnam airport, the CM said the landing of such flights during night was becoming more difficult due to curbs imposed by the Navy. He laid stress on developing the beach corridor in a big way.
In a related development, the chief minister chaired the AP Road Safety Council meeting. Officials informed the CM that 108 ambulances were playing a crucial role in saving the lives of the injured in road accidents. Injured persons were being brought to the hospitals in these ambulances in the ‘golden hour’ itself, which helped save their lives.
The chief minister asked officials to set up one driving school in each parliamentary constituency with support from APSRTC and the state government. “This would help the RTC and the people too.”
The CM also called for setting up trauma care centres in every district in addition to setting them up in the upcoming 16 new medical colleges. He felt there was the need to provide emergency care with the latest medical procedures and laid stress on the setting up of a rehabilitation centre for those injured in road accidents in Visakhapatnam.
He called for improving the amenities at the Balaji Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Tirupati.
The chief minister asked the officials to come up with plans on making separate lanes for two-wheelers and four-wheelers as it would help minimize accidents. He also asked them to fix sign boards specifying the speed limit.
The officials said they have identified 1,190 black spots – accident-prone areas – and steps were taken to ensure safety at 520 spots.
The CM said there was also the need to avoid sale of liquor in roadside dhabas and set up bumps to check speed on important roads. He said a review should be done on the system of issuing driving licences in ways as to avoid road accidents, by setting up district-level committees.
He accorded sanction for the setting up of a lead agency on road safety with experts drawn from the police, transport, health and road engineering departments. He also gave the green signal for the setting up a road safety fund and asked officials to do a network with hospitals to provide cashless treatment to accident victims.
There is also a need to provide insurance coverage to the accident victims, he said.
