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Our Bureau

NHAI, State have spent Rs 6 cr and Rs 1.07 cr, respectively

Ahmedabad , Sept. 26

The three national highways passing through Gujarat, which had been badly affected due to the floods last month, have all been repaired and will be made traffic-compliant by the month-end, said Mr K.H. Muniappa, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, here on Tuesday.

After reviewing the progress on this front, he told a news conference here that almost all national highways had been heavily affected due to the August floods. In particular, NH-8 between the Vadodara and Surat section (part of the Delhi-Mumbai Highway) had been badly damaged. This as also NH-6 and NH-59 have all been repaired and traffic restored. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the Gujarat Government have spent Rs 6 crore and Rs 1.07 crore on repairs respectively, he added.

Immediate restoration

He said his Ministry had released Rs 3 crore on ad-hoc basis for immediate restoration of these key roads soon after they were submerged in the floods. The State Government had requested for Rs 20.57 crore and Rs 31.48 crore for 2006-07 for the immediate and permanent restoration of the National Highways.

The Minister said Gujarat has already received Rs 350 crore out of the Rs 500 crore sanctioned from the Prime Minister's National Calamity Contingency Fund towards flood relief.

Mr Muniappa said the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Expressway, part of the Golden Quadrilateral, would be completed in the next three years.

The six-lane expressway would reduce the journey between the two metropolises to just five hours from the current 10. About 50,000 km of the 66,620-km-long quadrilateral is projected to be completed by 2012 at a cost of Rs 2.20 lakh crore.

The Centre, he added, has charted a course of phased development programmes for national highways for 2005-2012 by envisaging an investment of Rs 1.72 crore.

More Stories on : Roadways | Natural Calamities | Gujarat

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