Ninety-one pc of Golden Quadrilateral completed

New Delhi, May 18: The Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project, which seeks to connect the four metros of Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai through a chain of state-of-the-art highways, has been completed to the tune of 91 per cent as in April this year, the government informed the Rajya Sabha today.

Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways K H Muniyappa, in a written reply said the North-South and East-West corridors was likely to be substantially completed by 2008.

Out of the total length of 7300 km of the two corridors, work on 822 km (600 km on the North-South corridor and 222 km on the East-West corridor) had been completed as in April this year.

The North-South corridor envisages a length of 4076 km while the East-West corridor comprises 3640 km.

Mr Muniyappa said work on 4892 km of the two corridors was on while contracts for the remaining 1481 km had to be awarded.

About the impediments in the implementation of the corridor project, he said preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and finalisation of tenders in Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and some other states had been delayed because of difficult terrain conditions and delay in environmental clearance.

He said the Prime Minister-headed Committee on Infrastructure had decided to improve National Highways under phases I-VII of the NHDP involving an investment of Rs 2,20,000 crore.

The minister said at present there was no plan to connect north-eastern states to the GQ. ''However, connectivity to the North-Eastern region is envisaged through East-West Corridor with stretches identified for improvement under the NHDP Phase-III and Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North-East (SARDP-NE)''.

He also informed that Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttaranchal were not directly linked with the GQ.

Mr Muniyappa said there was no plan at present to declare new National Highways and only the existing ones would be improved.

Uttaranchal, Goa and Madhya Pradesh are planned to be connected to the GQ under the NHDP Phase-III.

UNI