Vijayawada: In a significant push to industrial development in backward regions of the state, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the construction of a four-lane Badvel-Nellore corridor on Wednesday. The highway will be taken up with a length of 108 km at a cost of Rs 3,653 crore on National Highway 67. The project will be initiated through design-build-finance-operate-transfer (DBFOT) mode. The corridor will provide connectivity to important nodes in the three industrial corridors of Andhra Pradesh, including Kopparthy node on the Vishakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor, Orvakal node on Hyderabad-Bengaluru industrial corridor, and Krishnapatnam node on the Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridor. The project is likely to have a positive impact on the country’s logistic performance index.The Badvel-Nellore corridor will start from Gopavaram village on the existing NH-67 in YSR Kadapa district and terminate at Krishnapatnam port junction on NH-16 (Chennai-Kolkata) in Nellore district. This new NH will also provide strategic connectivity to Krishnapatnam port which has been identified as a priority node under the Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridor. The proposed corridor will reduce the travel distance to Krishanpatnam port by 33.9 km — from 142 km to 108.13 km — as compared to the existing Badvel-Nellore road. This will reduce travel time by an hour and ensure that substantial gain is achieved in terms of reduced fuel consumption, thereby reducing carbon footprint and vehicle operating cost.
