The daughter-in-law of the late Rajya Sabha MP Manorama Dobriyal Sharma has appealed to the members of Parliament from Uttarakhand to effectively pursue the major demands raised by Sharma for the development of the State. Addressing the media in Dehradun on Sunday, Asha Sharma said that her deceased mother-in-law had pursued her dream of linking the Asian highway project with the Himalayan highway project.
Recalling the late MP’s efforts in this regard, her daughter-in-law said that Manorama Dobriyal Sharma had written to both the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari requesting them specifically to bring Uttarakhand under the purview of the Asian highway project by linking this project with the Himalayan highway project.
The various towns of Uttarakhand including Gairsain, Karnprayag, Srinagar and Almora among others had been included in the Himalayan highway project. linking this project with the Asian highway project would prove very beneficial for the people of Uttarakhand, she added. It should be mentioned here that the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) had sanctioned the $26 billion Asian highway Project for strengthening road infrastructure in Asia.
The Government of India has also considered linking the Asian highway project with the Himalayan highway project. The Asian highway project entails linking parts of various Asian nations through a road network. As part of this project 11,650 km road will pass from the Wagah border in Punjab to Delhi, Kolkata and from North East India to the neighbouring countries Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh.