CCEA gives nod to alternative highway for Tripura and Mizoram

Agartala, Oct 12 (UNI) The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given the nod for an alternative National Highway for Tripura and Mizoram.

Official sources said here today that the length of the proposed road would be 285 km and it would connect Agartala and Aizawl to Guwahati via Silchar, the trading point of south Assam.

Besides being a long and dangerous terrain, Sonarpur of Jayantiya Hill district, bordering Assam and Meghalaya, is prone to mud slides and during the monsoons every year, Tripura, Mizoram and the Cachar and Barak valley in Meghalaya remain cut off due to landslides, officials stated.

The Tripura and Mizoram governments had been persuading the Centre since several years to construct an alternative highway bypassing the troubled part of NH 44 in Meghalaya and finally it had been included in the Northeastern Road Accelerated Programme.

The CCEA gave approval for expansion of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme (SARDP) for the Northeast covering an additional 994 km of roads at a cost of Rs 4,673 crore, officials stated.

The expansion programme will connect state capitals with 2/4 lane National Highways and Aizawl, Imphal and Agartala will get upgraded road connectivity with alternative National Highways.

UNI