Title - Gulbarga-Gooty State highway to be made national highway, New Solapur-YPR train would be inaugurated

Union Labour and Employment Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge said on Saturday that the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has given its provisional sanction to upgrade the 380-km-long State highway from Gulbarga to Gooty in Andhra Pradesh that passes through Yadgir, Raichur and Mantralayam into a national highway at a cost of over Rs. 600 crore.Mr. Kharge told presspersons here that this was one of the major national highway projects sanctioned for Karnataka by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. He said this would provide connectivity between National Highway 9 that connects Mumbai and Hyderabad with the Bangalore-Hyderabad national highway and reduce the travelling time from Gulbarga to Bangalore by at least three hours.Mr. Kharge, however expressed dissatisfaction with the State government’s failure to submit the estimates for upgrading the road from Gulbarga to the Andhra Pradesh border near Mantralayam to the Centre. He said that though he had mooted the proposal first with the Union Ministry for upgrading the Gulbarga-Gooty State Highway as a national highway, Andhra Pradesh had already submitted the estimates for upgrading the road length in Andhra Pradesh and the Centre had released the funds. Mr. Kharge said that he had requested the State government to submit the estimates at the earliest for getting funds released. On the delay in introducing the new superfast express train from Solapur to Yeshwantpur passing through Gulbarga, included in the Railway Budget this year, Mr. Kharge said the train, scheduled to operate three days in a week, would be inaugurated shortly and the Minister of State for Railways K.H. Muniyappa has assured the new train would be inaugurated in August. Mr. Kharge said there was no proposal to change the leadership of either the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee or the Congress Legislature Party. “Both G. Parameshwara and Siddaramaiah will continue in their respective posts,” he said. Mr. Kharge said the Medical Council of India has given its approval for starting undergraduate medical courses at the ESIC Hospital and Medical College at Rajaji Nagar in Bangalore with an intake of 100 students this year. He said the college has already been sanctioned 16 postgraduate seats.