The Roads and Transport Ministry has set before itself a two-year timeframe to build the road network in the northeastern States, which has been outlined as “top priority” by its Minister Nitin Gadkari. Work has already begun on the projects for which Gadkari has got a Rs12,000-crore road map chalked out to the get the ball rolling.
In the Congress-led Government, the road construction in the N-E States moved at a snail’s pace, with the annual report card showing an average day construction pace of 0.52 kilometres.
Even if one were to study the pace of work in the last three years — since the previous Government pumped in more money and rechristened the project in 2010 as Special Accelerated Road Development Programme (SARDP-NE) — the average pace has been only 0.51 km per day.
“The Minister (Gadkari) has said that building the northeast road network is his highest priority. The Ministry has already prepared an initial programme of Rs12,000 crore to get the work moving in the region,” said an official from MoRTH.“The Ministry has formed the Indian Road and Infrastructure Corporation to fund projects. The aim of the corporation will be to get low interest capital from Japan and other countries interested in funding infrastructure projects in India,” he said.
Gadkari is believed to have entrusted the new corporation with its first task — start the work in North-East region. Officials in the Ministry have already initiated talks with Southeast Asian countries to get foreign funding for infrastructure projects.“Foreign investments are extremely crucial for the growth in the sector, which has been witnessing its lowest in terms of growth in a decade now,” said the official.
In the year 2012-13, roads Ministery could build only 260 km of road network in the north-east in the entire year. The year 2011-12 was worse, with only 150 km of newly built roads. And 2010-11, fared still worse with only 146 km of new roads built in the period.With a total fund corpus of Rs40,000 crore, the previous UPA Government had planned to upgrade National Highways connecting State capitals to 2 and 4-lane roads and provide connectivity to all 88 District Headquarters of N-E States, by at least 2-lane roads.
Among other targets were to improve roads of strategic importance in border area and improve connectivity to neighboring countries.