Government spends Rs 900 crore in a year for road connectivity in hilly areas

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has spent close to Rs 900 crore for the development and maintenance of National Highways in Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand during April 2015 to February 2016.

Apart from the total expenditure of Rs 898.92 crore on the three aforementioned states, the government still has close to Rs 90 crore in reserve of the allocated funds, which will be spent on the same.

The road development projects are taken up as per inter se priority, traffic density and availability of funds.

An official release by MoRTH stated, “The Ministry has taken up detailed review of National Highways (NHs) network in the country including road network in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, with a view to improve the road connectivity to coastal/ border areas, backward areas, religious places, tourist places, construction/ rehabilitation/ widening of about 1,500 major bridges and 208 Railway Over Bridges (ROBs) / Railway Under Bridges (RUBs) on NHs, improvement of newly declared NHs providing connectivity to district head quarters and connectivity improvement program for Char-Dham (Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunothri & Gangothri in Uttarakhand) under proposed Bharatmala Pariyojana.”

The ministry has also taken up development of roads under Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North East Region (SARDP-NE) including Arunachal Pradesh Package of Roads for improvement of road connectivity in states of North Eastern region.