Central aid sought for rail corridor

Hyderabad, July 31 (UNI) The Andhra Pradesh government has sought Centre's assistance to take up 'Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam Intercity High Speed Rail Corridor' at the cost of Rs 90,000 crore, during the review meeting of state's development programmes by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Addressing the press here, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said the government had placed the proposal before Dr Singh urging him to speed up the modalities. The state government and Railway Ministry would set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to take up the project at the earliest.

Dr Reddy said the government urged to assist 4,000 MW Krishnapatnam Ultra Mega Power Project. Tender finalisation would be completed by the end of this October. The HPCL Visakhapatnam refinery would be expanded to 8.3 million tonnes by 2008 and 10 million tonnes by 2011.

The detailed project report and final orders to set up grossroot refinery at Kakinada would be completed by the end of October, he said adding that the Centre agreed to increase the capacity of Visakhapatnam Port from 56 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes.

Stating that the Prime Minister also assured to develop infrastructure for Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Investment Region at Visakhapatnam, the Chief Minister said Dr Singh appreciated the government efforts for taking up Bhu Bharati programme taken up in Nizamabad and expressed keen interest to take up this programme in the country and Arogya Sri programme.

UNI