Staff Reporter
Guwahati: Construction work on 789 km of national highways in six states of the Northeastern region has been awarded by the central government in the current financial year of 2024-25. Of the 789 km of NHs, 166 km is in the state of Assam.
According to information by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), work on the highest length of NHs has been awarded for Arunachal Pradesh in the current financial year (up to November 2024), with a total length of 172 km. After Arunachal, Assam will have the second longest stretch of 166 km. Two other hill states, Mizoram and Meghalaya, will have 146 and 141 km of NHs, respectively, to be constructed. Moreover, construction of 128 km of NHs will be done in the state of Manipur. Tripura is the sixth state to have construction of new NHs of 36 km length awarded.
The remaining two states in the NE, namely Nagaland and Sikkim, have no new NHs work awarded in the current financial year.
Currently, work on the balance length of 1753 km of NHs is underway in the eight NE states. According to data from MoRTH, work on 633 km of NHs is underway in Assam, which is the highest length of NH work among the NE states. Work on 390 km of NHs is currently ongoing in Nagaland. Manipur has 335 km of NHs being constructed. Meanwhile, Tripura has 204 km of NHs being constructed at present. Arunachal has 194 km of NHs, Mizoram has 147 km of NHs, Meghalaya has 144 km, and Sikkim has 96 km of NHs of work on balance length under construction as of November 2024.
Of the 633 km of NHs being constructed in Assam, the stretch of NH from Jorhat to Dibrugarh has become a major cause of concern, with delay after delay in construction work by the firms awarded the work. Recently, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, wrote to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, informing the latter that the stretch of NH from Jorhat to Dibrugarh has been divided into smaller packages and the work is now progressing with 11 contractors on board. It remains to be seen when the work on this stretch will be completed, as many firms could not show good progress in the work earlier, and it was proceeding at a snail's pace.
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