Phase I of Hyderabad's ORR inaugurated

After facing several hitches, the 24-km outer ring road (ORR) Phase I from Gachibowli to Shamshabad was thrown open to public on Friday. Only four of the eight lanes were thrown open and the remaining lanes will be completed by August, 2009. Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy took a tour of the entire 24-km stretch. As promised to the chief minister to complete the four lanes by November 14 a couple of months ago, the project officials opened the route for public but at several stretches the work remains unfinished. At some places, only twolane road is ready and work on bridges and culverts is yet to be completed. At some stretches, even bitumen layer is not laid. The Rs 699-crore ORR phase I project was entrusted to two agencies --M/S Corporation Transstroy, OJSC, Russia, and M/S Continental Engineering Corporation, Taiwan. As much as 434 acres private land and 300 acres government and forest land was acquired for the project. The erstwhile Huda spent about Rs 90 crore on land acquisition alone.The officials said the four-lane ORR is open for airport-bound vehicular traffic only. Trucks, autos, two-wheelers and pedestrians will not be allowed to use the road. The speed limits is 60 km per hour on the ORR and 40 km per hour on the two-lane road. "As the work on the remaining four lanes will go on, the traffic using the finished road is likely to face some inconvenience. All the bridges and culverts will be completed by March 2009,'' ORR project director Rahul Bojja said. The other two phases, II-A from Narsingi to Patancheru, and Pedda Amberpet to Shamshabad for a length of 62 km will be completed by May 2010. The 71-km phase II-B, from Patancheru to Pedda Amberpet via Medchal and Shamirpet and Ghatkesar is expected to be ready by December 2011.The Phase I of ORR should have been completed last year itself, but the deadline was extended due to various problems. Though the work was started in July 2006, the land at Chilkur reserve forest was acquired as late as in March, 2007 while the Andhra Pradesh Police Academy handed over its land in phases from December 2007 to April 2008. Hitches were also faced in rock excavation at the Urdu University, Manchirevula and Kothwalguda villages. There was stiff resistance from the villagers to the rock blasting. The officials had also tough time in acquiring land where religious structures and graveyards were located.