Vijayawada: The daily chaos on the roads of Vijayawada, especially on the BRTS road is being blamed on diversion of traffic from the Misala Rajeswara Rao Road in view of the ongoing Kanakadurga flyover works. The bumper-to-bumper traffic is proof that the BRTS road is in no position to handle the extra volume. Ideally, the BRTS road has to be extended up to Railway Caltex Road, via Railway colony and Khuddus Nagar. However, the Railways has been obstructing this, since it would lead to traffic flowing onto its roads.

Incidentally, the Vijayawada-Bandar railway line was removed in 2002-03 following representations by locals about the problems faced because of that line. However, no road construction has taken place from the Ryvs canal to the railway colony, which is supposed to take place by this time. Under JNNURM scheme, this was supposed to be done. Two flyovers were constructed, one on Eluru canal and the other on Ryvs canal, Gunadala.

Due to the Kanakadurga flyover works all traffic from National Highway No. 9 has been diverted to BRTS flyover. The railways was given 100 acres by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation for relinquishing the railway track. Despite this, confining of BRTS road up to MRR Road has been causing traffic jams.

Just an additional 500 metres of road would be enough to address the traffic issues, but the railways remains adamant at not allowing traffic through its lands. To ease traffic flow, a flyover has to be constructed between Panja centre and Railway station, and accordingly the VMC should have a dialogue with the Railways authorities, said Y. Prabhakar Rao, a resident of Satyanarayanapuram.