Government today said it will repair National Highway-44 in Tripura on "war footing" to improve connectivity in the state.
The assurance comes a day after Tripura government sought the Centre's intervention to repair a highway stretch to ensure supply of essential commodities to the state.
"I have instructed officials to work on war footing to fix NH-44 so as to improve connectivity to Tripura," Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari tweeted today.
The NH-44 constitutes Shillong-Passi-C288 Badarpur- Agartala Sabroom Shillong-Nongstoin section.
"I would be monitoring the progress of this highway on a fortnightly basis," the minister said in another tweet.
Yesterday, Tripura PWD Minister Badal Chowdhury had urged the Centre for immediate repair of a portion of National Highway as thousands of trucks carrying essential commodities for Tripura were stranded due to poor condition of the road.
"If such condition continues for a few more days, the state would face acute crisis of essential commodities and fuel. I have urged the Central Government to take urgent steps to immediately repair the national highway and create a situation for bringing essential commodities through neighbouring Bangladesh," Chowdhury had said.
Speaking about infrastructure projects in Andhra
Pradesh, the road transport minister said Rs 1,665 crore worth of projects have been completed for the Visakhapatnam port and projects worth Rs 2,702 crore are going on.
"Within 3 months, we are going to award the projects of Rs 1,200 crore. On this port, we are making investment of Rs 6,000 crore," Gadkari added.
He felt that port-driven development will reduce the cost and this is one of the reasons why the government is giving priority to waterways.
On Buckingham Canal near Vijayawada, the minister said: "We will try to take loan in dollars and use that for this canal project, which costs Rs 2,000 crore."
For the Amaravati-Anantpur road project, land acquisition has started and soon, it will start, according to the minister.
"Before the end of our five years, we will start the work for Andhra Pradesh worth Rs 1 lakh crore," he announced.
Meanwhile, NHAI and the Department of Roads and Buildings (R&B) inked MoU for construction of 3,000 km of roads, worth Rs 75,000 crore. The second MoU was signed between NHAI and CRDA for 426 km, worth of Rs 23,430 crore.
The minister also announced Rs 1,000 crore for Central Road Fund (CRF) in Andhra Pradesh and 30 rail overbridges (ROBs) at a cost of Rs 3,500 crore.
