Guntur: After a long delay for several years, the state government has decided to construct the Guntur-Piduguralla road stretch on Guntur-Hyderabad highway in the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.The state government accorded administrative sanction to take up the project, which would cost Rs 735 crore through PPP mode . As part of the project, toll plaza would be set up on the highway near Kondamodu village and this would cause huge burden on commuters.The government would allow the successful bidder to recover nearly Rs 504 crore investment through the collection of toll. The duration of the toll has not been fixed yet.Initially, the government had agreed to take up the project with its own funds following the pressure from the assembly speaker and Sattenapalle legislator Dr Kodela Sivaprasada Rao. He met the chief minister Chandrababu Naidu several times to get his nod to the highway modernization project. Later, the state government backtracked due to severe fund shortage.Now, the project will be taken up on the Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) basis in the PPP mode. The widening and modernisation of 50-km long highway between Guntur and Piduguralla has been hanging in balance for the past four years.The Guntur-Hyderabad highway has become very busy, particularly after the capital city works gained momentum about two years ago. The heavy traffic on the highway also turned it into a death trap for the commuters as the district police identified it as one of the deadliest highways in the district.With many of the cement companies, located in and around Gurazala and Macherla towns, moving heavy stocks to the capital city construction works has doubled up the vehicular movement on the highway.Highlighting all these issues, speaker Dr Kodela lobbied hard with the state government to take up the project on war-footing basis. Chief minister Chandrababu Naidu had laid the foundation stone for the works in last November. However, the government took another three months to finalise the modalities and fund mobilization.However, the government has agreed to foot the bill of land acquisition. It would cost nearly Rs.180.66 crore to acquire the land required for widening of the existing two-lane road to four-lane.

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