The Centre on Wednesday approved three highway projects each in Maharashtra, Odisha and Punjab to be implemented at a cost of Rs 5,965 crore.

The CCEA in its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the projects for widening of Aurangabad-Telwadi section of NH 211 in Maharashtra, Angul-Sambalpur section of NH-42 (New NH-55) in Odisha and Phagwara-Rupnagar section of NH-344A in Punjab.

"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)...has approved the development of four laning of Aurangabad-Telwadi Section of NH-211 in Maharashtra. The cost is estimated to be Rs 2028.91 crore including cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation," Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.

The total length of the road to be developed is approximately 87 kms. The work will be done under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase-IV on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (BOT/DBFOT) basis in BOT toll mode. Besides uplifting socio economic development, the project would generate employment potential of 3,54,090 (approx) mandays.

The project in Odisha will be taken up at a cost of Rs 2491.53 crore including cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities. The total length of the road to be developed is approximately 151 kms. This work will be done under NHDP Phase-IV on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) basis.

In Punjab, the four-laning of the section will be done at an estimated cost of Rs 1,444.42 crore. The total length of the road to be developed is approximately 80.820 kms.

The government said employment potential of about 3,30,000 mandays will be generated locally during the construction period of Phagwara-Rupnagar section in Punjab. The section has recently been declared as NH-344A. Presently, the proposed project highway is 2-lane with paved shoulder (68.820 km) and four lane (15.8km).

This road will join Phagwara to Rupnagar via Nawashahir and will be the shortest route to Amritsar from Chandigarh and vice-versa. All the three projects will help expedite the improvement of infrastructure in the respective states besides reducing time and traffic.