Road projects in poll-bound states to be showcased

Since coming to the power, the new government has cleared road projects worth over Rs 40,000 crore which were stuck due to various reasons

The Narendra Modi-led government is all set to woo voters before the Assembly elections in four states, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand. The Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, has asked the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to prepare booklets showcasing the government’s achievements in the roads sector in these poll-bound states.

The letter to the NHAI, written in English, asks for booklets to be prepared in Hindi and regional languages specific to the states. It asks for all the details of the road projects, ongoing and recently completed, to be included in the booklet.

Since becoming the minister, Gadkari has cleared projects worth over Rs 40,000 crore which were stuck due to various reasons, including environmental clearances and land acquisition. The approved projects include Rs 20,000 crore of highway projects in Jammu & Kashmir, Rs 15,000 crore of road-building projects in the Northeast and Rs 6,000 crore of road network in Uttarakhand and other states. A target of building 30 km of roads a day from 2016 has also been set by the minister.

The government has got into election mode with Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching and laying foundation stones for some 10 projects across Jharkhand and Maharashtra, after similar project launches in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir.

The Ranchi-Dharamjaygarh-Sipat inter-regional transmission line built by Power Grid Corporation, a central transmission utility, at a cost of Rs 1,600 crore, was inaugurated by the prime minister. This line is the first inter-regional link between the eastern region and the western region. Jharkhand had the potential to become the best, many times more than Gujarat, Modi said while inaugurating the project.

Another project, the Jasidih Oil Terminal, built at a cost of Rs 109 crore, is the first pipeline-fed terminal of Jharkhand.

Modi visited poll-bound Maharashtra twice in quick succession. He laid the foundation stone for a metro project in Nagpur a day after the Union Cabinet cleared the Rs 8,860 crore project. Maharashtra's second metro, after Mumbai, will run in senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gadkari's constituency. The 38.215-km-long Nagpur metro project, scheduled to be completed by March 2018, will be funded on equal sharing basis between the state and the Centre, with the latter contributing Rs 1,555 crore as equity and subordinate debt.

Apart from laying the foundation stone for the Pardi flyover in Nagpur city, Modi also dedicated to the nation the 1,000-Mw Mouda Super Thermal Power Project Stage-1. A special package of Rs 8,000 crore for road projects in Jammu & Kashmir was also announced by the PM. He inaugurated two power projects, at Nemo Bazgo in Leh and at Chutak in Kargil, and laid the foundation stone for a Rs 1,788 crore transmission line that will connect the entire Ladakh region to the northern grid via Srinagar and Dras.

In Haryana, Modi laid the foundation stone for a project for four-laning of the Kaithal-Siwani-Rajgarh stretch of a national highway. The 166-km road will be constructed at a cost of Rs 1,394 crore.