Stepping up its effort to create and upgrade necessary infrastructure in the Chennai Metropolitan Area, the State Government has decided to invest over Rs. 1,300 crores for improvement of roads in and around the city.The Government has tied up Rs. 574 crores with the World Bank under the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Project-III, and will pump in about Rs. 730 crores for the road works.In the first phase, the works, completely funded by the Government, will be taken up at a cost of Rs. 290 crores. They will be carried out in 52 packages, of which contracts for 39 packages have already been awarded. The selected contractors have even performed 'bhoomi pujas,' a senior government official says. Contracts for some of the remaining packages will be settled soon. "We want all the works to be executed in a year," the official says.