Bridge building: Gogoi pats himself

'3,813 concrete bridges constructed since 2001'

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Aug 7: Brushing aside allegations of poor surface connectivity in the State, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today claimed that several schemes initiated by his government to smoothen surface communication in rural areas, have started paying dividends.

In a statement, Gogoi said when his government took charge in 2001, the State had only 309 concrete bridges. Since then, the government has constructed 3,813 concrete bridges since 2001 till date of which 2,802 were converted from wooden to concrete and 1,011 are new constructions.

Gogoi said at present 1,285 bridges are under construction of which 1,183 are being converted to RCC bridges and 102 are new constructions. The Chief Minister pointed out that though there are bamboo bridges in the State, they are not under PWD department. However, the State government is all set to take action to convert these bamboo bridges into concrete bridges in phased manner, Gogoi added.

Gogoi further said when the present government took the reign in 2001, the State PWD had 4,367 kms of all-weather concrete roads in Assam which consisted of 12 per cent of the PWD roads. This has been increased to 25,189 kms. Moreover at present, concretization of five thousand kilometres of roads is going on in the State for smooth surface road communication, Gogoi added.