Keeping in mind the future needs of Amaravati, the AP government has requested the Centre to allow land acquisition of 150 meters wide for the Outer Ring Road (ORR). It has requested permission to acquire land for the expansion of the ORR in the future and for the movement of railway lines and suburban trains along it.
However, the Union Ministry of Transport and National Highways has refused this. As the construction work of the capital gains momentum, the government has also focused on the development of the areas around Amaravati. The Amaravati ORR, which will be the jewel of the capital, will be constructed with a width of 150 meters.
The state government has once again sought permission from the Centre for its land acquisition. The Union Ministry of Transport and National Highways has already allowed land acquisition with a width of 70 meters, but the state government has reiterated that it should be 150 meters as they had previously requested.
The approval committee of the Union Ministry of Transport and National Highways on December 20 approved the alignment of the 189.4 km long six-lane access control outer ring road in the districts of NTR, Krishna, Eluru, Guntur and Palnadu. It has approved the acquisition of land of 1,702 acres with a width of 70 meters.
The project cost, including construction cost, land acquisition and other approvals, has been estimated at Rs. 16,310 crore. The outer ring road alignment approval committee had suggested minor changes at five places while giving preliminary approval. In this regard, the officials of the NHAI inspected the area and made minor changes at five places and sent the file to the state government.
The state government, which agreed to this, insisted that the width of the outer ring road should be from 70 meters to 150 meters. Keeping in mind the future needs, permission was sought for land acquisition to that extent. The proposal stated that the six-lane ring road to be built now would be expanded to 8 lanes in the future and that land would be required to lay a railway line along the ORR and run suburban trains.
It was also clarified that the lands acquired for the national highway project should be used only for that purpose and that they could not acquire land for the railway line. It was suggested that if a railway line was to be built along the ORR, the railway department should be contacted.