To strengthen road connectivity in North-East India, the Central Government has announced a big highway project. Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has announced the planning of a 630 km long corridor connecting Siliguri, Guwahati and Shillong. About ₹61,500 crore will be spent on this entire project. Its objective is to reduce travel time as well as improve connectivity of the strategically important North-East region.
In a program organized in Assam, Nitin Gadkari said that the first part of the proposed corridor will be between Siliguri and Guwahati. About ₹30,000 crore will be spent on this 400 km long section. For this, along with new construction of roads, some existing roads will also be upgraded. The process of approval of this route is still going on. This area is very important strategically, because Siliguri Corridor is called Chicken Neck. It is the main route connecting the north-eastern states of the country with the rest of India.
Guwahati-Shillong journey will be shorter
Under the project, a new greenfield highway is also proposed from Jorbat near Guwahati to Barapani in Meghalaya. With this, the distance between the two places will reduce from about 100 kilometers to 66 kilometers. The current journey of about two and a half hours is expected to be reduced to about one hour.
Shillong-Silchar route will also be faster
Another important part of the corridor will be the 165 km long greenfield highway from Shillong to Silchar. At present the road distance between the two cities is about 230 kilometers. The new route will reduce distance and travel time is expected to reduce from about 8 hours to 4 hours. It is planned to issue the work order for this part in November.
Road projects worth about ₹2 lakh crore in Assam
Gadkari also gave information about the ongoing road development works in Assam. There are 265 projects running in the state covering about 4,700 km, with an estimated cost of around ₹2 lakh crore. Apart from this, 31 new projects of about 1,470 km are proposed, on which approximately ₹ 92,000 crore is estimated to be spent.
Connectivity from Uttar Pradesh to North-East will also be strengthened.
The government is also working on expressway connectivity between Gorakhpur and Siliguri. There is a plan to improve road connectivity between Uttar Pradesh and the North-East by connecting it with the proposed 630 km corridor. Apart from this, the Center has also approved a 135.87 km four-lane, access-controlled corridor from Baihata Chariyali near Guwahati to Tezpur. ₹8,970.20 crore will be spent on this.
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