Amaravati: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy held a review meeting on the progress of works in Roads and Buildings Department at the camp office here on Monday.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister said the negligence of previous government in maintenance of roads and ‘heavy rains in the past two years are responsible for the condition of roads across the state and added that a malicious propaganda is being spread that all the roads were damaged in the present government. He said the state government has sanctioned Rs 2205 crore for construction and maintenance of roads in a year and it has never happened in the history of the state.

The officials informed the Chief Minister that construction and repair of roads will be completed by the end of May and added that 33 Road Over Bridges (ROBs) have been pending for a long time. The Chief Minister said distorted news that those ROBs were pending in the current government is being spread and added that the state government has been spending Rs 571.3 crore to complete these works. The officials informed the Chief Minister that tenders for 83 percent of the road works are completed and 100 percent tenders will be completed by the end of February.

The officials briefed the Chief Minister on the steps being taken for construction of the beach corridor road from Visakhapatnam port to Bhimili - Bhogapuram. The Chief Minister instructed the officials to focus on road designs and said that the beach corridor should be the best in the world and added that it should decrease travel time between Visakhapatnam and Bhogapuram Airport. He said beach corridor project needs to be given highest priority as tourism projects will come up near the beach corridor road and as there are many restrictions on civil flights in the current airport and even night landing of flights is getting difficult due to Navy restrictions.

Roads and Buildings Minister M Shankar Narayana, Chief Secretary Dr Sameer Sharma, Revenue Special Chief Secretary Rajat Bhargava, Transport Principal Secretary MT Krishnababu, Transport Commissioner P Sitaramanjaneyulu and other senior officials were present in the meeting.