By IAN
Hyderabad : The first phase of the new Outer Ring Road (ORR), which is aimed at decongesting the city, was thrown open to traffic Friday.
The 23.48 km long first phase connects Gacchibowli to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad. This will ensure better connectivity to the airport from Hitech City and Gacchibowli, the information technology hubs.
Named after former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the eight-lane 158 km long ORR is being built at an estimated cost of Rs.67.87 billion and is expected to be completed by 2011.
The first phase built at a cost of nearly Rs.7 billion, however, was thrown open only with four lanes and the remaining lanes are likely to be completed by August next year.
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy reviewed the progress of the ORR works on the occasion.
Since this stretch is only for traffic going towards the airport, the authorities have banned the entry of trucks, three-wheelers and two-wheelers on it. The speed limit has been fixed at 60 km per hour.
The ORR project is being built in three phases and companies from Russia, Japan and Thailand are undertaking the work.
The officials said tenders were already finalised for the second phase, that would stretch 60 km and is estimated to cost Rs.22 billion and be under public private partnership model and build, operate and transfer basis.
The third phase covering 71 km is being taken up with assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency.
One km area on both sides of ORR will come under the ORR Growth corridor with special regulations for the development of commercial, residential and institutional activity there.
The 500 feet wide ORR is supported by service roads on both sides.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had in 2004 laid the foundation stone for the project, which has given an impetus to the development activity around the city.
Several world-class townships, IT parks, and institutes of excellence are likely to come up along the ORR.
There was delay in launching the work on the project due to hurdles in land acquisition and the controversies over the changes in original ORR plans. The opposition parties alleged that the Congress government changed the alignment to suit its interests.
Meanwhile, in another development, the city authorities Friday launched daily drinking water supply in some areas of the city.
It is after a gap of nearly 25 years that the city will be getting a daily water supply. This became possible after the completion of the works to bring Krishna river water to the city.
The daily water supply was discontinued and a system of alternate day supply was introduced in the mid 1980s by the then NTR government in view of the severe water scarcity and insufficient capacity of the reservoirs.
Launching the daily water supply project, the chief minister said that the situation will improve further once the project to bring water from Godavari river is completed. The Godavari water project is estimated to cost of Rs. 23 billion.
Officials said with the city growing by leaps and bounds, water from Krishna river is not sufficient to meet the needs of growing population.
The city and the surrounding areas have a population of over eight million.