Two Orissa Highways Being Widened

Two national highways in Orissa are being converted directly by the National Highways Autho-rity of India (NHAI) into four lanes. So far 77 four laning projects have been thrown open to the private sector, on a build-operate-transfer basis, but some projects have been retained by NHAI for development.

These projects include those where funding from the private sector may not be available on a project recourse basis and viability through private financing initiative was uncertain.

The highways for conversion into four lanes by NHAI are the NH 5 and the NH 60 between Balasore and Kharagpur, an official release said.

For meeting the funding requirements of these projects, the Union government has allocated Rs 80 crore, which includes Rs 50 crore for externally assisted projects. In addition another Rs 18.2 crore has been provided as a grant to the state for meeting the maintenance expenditure of highways.

An official release said the state government had sought upgradation of of eight routes in the state highways sector, totalling 2,318 km into national highways.

The routes sought for conversion to national highways include the linkage to Gopalpur Port and Raipur.

A review meeting was held between State officials and Union minister of state for surface transport Debendra Pradhan.

Currently, the national highway network in the state is 1,677 km, of which 1,372 is two lane.

Two major four laning projects have already been taken up with World Bank and OECF assistance. Of these two projects, the Bhubaneshwar-Cuttack route of about 28 km is estimated to cost Rs 218 crore and the Jagatpur-Chandikhol stretch is expected to cost Rs 137 crore.

Both these externally supported projects are expected to take about three years for completion, the release added.