Airport Connectivity, Mega Projects May Get Focus At Crucial Meet

Visakhapatnam: The need to finalise the deadline to take up work on Metro Rail, 6-lane coastal corridor and expansion of highway and transforming Visakhapatnam into a financial and industrial hub are expected to figure at the high-level meeting being addressed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here on December 6.

Naidu, who will arrive here on Thursday night after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Maharashtra Chief Minister-designate Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai, will spend the night at the party office and address VMRDA officials and stakeholders and attend a deeptech conclave.

With the Metro Rail project, which was envisaged when Naidu became the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation and other connectivity projects will be taken up on a fast-track mode with the State Cabinet recently clearing the revised DPR for undertaking Light Metro Project for a network of 76.9 km length in four corridors at an estimated cost of Rs.14,309 crore on Viability Gap Funding (VGF)-PPP financial model. The model provides 40% of project cost by Government of India and 60 per cent by private developer.

After getting Central approval, Naidu feels that timelines need to be set to complete work under Corridor-1 from Steel Plant to Kommadi, Corridor-2 Gurudwara to Old Post Office and Corridor-3 from Thatichetlapalem to China Waltair. Phase-2 consists of Corridor-4 from Kommadi to Bhogapuram comprising 30.67 km.

The meeting assumes significance in view of concern expressed in various quarters over the delay in addressing the connectivity issues.