From Our Correspondent
Agartala: Union Secretary for Ministry of Surface Transport and Highways A K Upadhyay has said expansion work on National Highway 44 would start soon, as the ministry is committed to ensuring better connectivity among northeastern states.
Talking to the media after a meeting with Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Upadhyay explained that procedural difficulties to justify the demand for four laning of NH 44 between Guwahati and Agartala, management of fund and land acquisition were the reasons for delay in the work.
Prime Minister Monmohan Singh, during his visit to Tripura in October 2005, had announced four laning of NH 44 as national project but no headway was made over the past seven years despite several rounds of discussions and meetings.
“Finally, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar met Union Minister of Surface Transport and Highways C P Joshi last month and Mr Upadhyay has come to visit the sites for beginning of the work,” said State Chief Engineer Public Works Department Sunil Bhowmik.
Upadhyay, however, pointed out that the ministry was keen to build double lane national highway maintaining the provisions of four lanes because volume of traffic and some other vital criteria did not support the justification of four laning of the road at this moment.
He stated that expansion of the National Highway would be started without further delay as per the revised DPR submitted by the state government and the work would be completed in three years.
NH 44 is the only lifeline of Meghalaya, South Assam, Mizoram and Tripura but because of physiographic reason and soil pattern for most of the year connectivity on the road was disrupted during monsoon and all these states had been suffering over the years.
Upadhyay with his team, including S Ravi Shankar, Director General of Border Road Organization (BRO), Chief Engineer S K Verma visited up to Ambassa towards Guwahati and Sabroom, south most borders of Tripura and Bangladesh. Initially, 333 km roads in the state territory from Churaibari to Sabroom would be undertaken besides, stalled work of Manu-Kanchanpur to establish connectivity between Tripura and Mizoram. (With inputs from UNI)
