Nine special road projects for NE states

Agartala, Aug 8 (UNI) The Shipping and Road Transport and Highways ministry has undertaken about nine projects to upgrade the roads of Northeatern states.

The project includes improvement of the existing roads as well as construction of new ones along with maintenance of all the 28 NHs of 6,880 km in the region.

Official sources here said the Centre has allocated Rs 6000 crore for construction of a four-lane highway in the 7,300 km East-West corridor between Silchar in Assam and Porbandar along with a 678 km from Srirampur in West Bengal to Silchar in Assam.

Altogether a three-lane new bridge across Brahmaputra river at Saraighat near Guwahati had already been completed, officials said adding that a highway connecting all the states of the Northeast with other parts of the country would substantially reduce the travel time and road transportation costs.

''Though the density of NH in the Northeast is higher than the all-India average, road connectivity in the region has remained inadequate due to under-development of roads,'' they observed.

Meanwhile, several remote areas in the region could not be opened up to economic development because of poor roads, which acquire higher importance as railway facilities in the hilly areas is not feasible and cost-effective, sources said.

A Special Accelerated Road Development Programme (SARDP-NE) had been undertaken, covering 7,616 km roads of various categories to connect all the state capitals of the Northeast with upgraded NHs.

The programme also envisaged to provide at least a two-lane road connectivity to all the district headquarters of the region and also to improve connectivity with the neighbouring countries.

Widening and improvement of 1,051 km NH stretches to four-lane to improve connectivity of Agartala, Aizawl, Imphal, Itanagar and Kohima is to be taken up under NH Development Project, Phase III (NHDP-III) on Build, Operate and Transfer basis, officials informed.

The officials also stated the executing agencies were facing some difficulties in the implementation of the programmes following delay in land acquisition.

UNI