Several N-E border highway projects to be taken over by Govt
At the recently-held first board meeting of the newly-constituted National Highway and Infrastructure Development (NHIDCL), it has been decided that a major chunk of North-Eastern (N-E) border highway projects will be taken over by the Government.
According to the information shared by unidentified official sources, the Government will take over the N-E border highway projects which are pending with Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for many years. The move will essentially facilitate a speedy implementation of the pending projects.
With the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways expressing the hope that the NHIDCL would help improve the connectivity in the border areas, the N-E projects which the NHIDCL will take over from BRO will include six Project Implementation Units (PIUs) in the north-eastern states.
The projects which the NHIDCL will initially focus on will include highway projects that connect Kathmandu, Dhaka and Myanmar.
In addition to the move involving the NHIDCL’s takeover of six PIUs from BRO, it was also decided at the meeting of the NHIDCL board – headed by secretary-roads Vijay Chhibber – that, to accelerate the work on the languishing projects, four new PIUs will be created in Uttarakhand.
In reference to the takeover of N-E highway projects by NHIDCL, an official said: “The PMO has indicated that we should enhance road connectivity with our neighbouring countries through north-eastern states…. This new organisation has got the necessary powers, even greater than that of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to perform this mandate.”
Source – The Financial Express
Border Roads Organisation, highway projects, ministry of road transport and highways, National Highway and Infrastructure Development, North-Eastern (N-E) border, Project implementation units
