In yet another move to do away with the capital status of Amaravati, the Andhra Pradesh government led by CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has virtually dumped the much-publicised Amaravati-Anantapur Expressway project by changing its alignment.
The Amaravati-Anantapur Expressway project was taken up during the Telugu Desam Party regime to connect Rayalaseema region with the proposed capital at Amaravati.
It was proposed to build this expressway parallel to the Kolkata-Chennai (NH16) road and submitted the DPR to the Centre to that effect. But after Jagan came to power, he did not evince much interest in the project.
Now that the Jagan government has proposed to form three capital cities for AP, reducing Amaravati to just a legislative capital, it has changed the entire project report and submitted a revised DPR to the Centre and got the approval.
Accordingly, the expressway would connect Anantapur to the Vijayawada-Chennai national highway (NH16) at Chilakaluripet. This will reduce the length of the expressway by another 47 km and proposals to acquire 741 hectares of land will be withdrawn.
Although the then government estimated that the expressway would cost Rs 27,635 crore, the latest changes would generate a revenue of Rs 3,500 crore. The expressway will reduce the travel distance by 148 km and save 2 hours of travel time.
Already, the government has taken up construction of Chilakaluripeta bypass road at a cost of Rs 867 crore as part of this expressway.