Centre committed to develop road network in Arunachal: Minister

The Centre is committed to develop road infrastructure in Arunachal Pradesh and attaching priority to it, Union Minister Mansukh L Mandaviya said here today.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is clear that East and West should develop equally without discrimination and accordingly being a minister, who hails from extreme western part of the country (Gujarat), I am here in the extreme eastern part to assess the progress of road development," he told reporters.
The Minister of State for Chemical & Fertilizers, Road Transport & Highways and Shipping has arrived here yesterday to launch the ambitious 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana'.
He today launched another 'Jan Aushadhi Store' at Ziro in Lower Subansiri district and inspected the Pappu-Yupia-Hoj-Potin stretch of NH 713A which had severely been damaged by landslides.

The stretch of the highway has been widened to two lane by the Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Ministry at a cost of Rs 450 crore.
The work was substantially completed in March last but due to heavy rain since April this year that triggered landslides, the road was damaged at about 30 to 35 spots.

Expressing serious concern over the condition of the road, he suggested that long term measures, hill side protection measures need to be undertaken with the input and guidance of expert agencies so that road damages could be minimised.
"I have directed the state PWD officials to prepare estimate and submit to the ministry in a week's time for necessary repair and maintenance of the 50-km stretch of NH13 between Potin and Ziro," he said.

Earlier at Ziro, Mandaviya announced an amount of Rs 10 crore for maintenance of Potin to Bopi stretch of road here.
"This stretch of the road (Potin to Bopi) needs immediate maintenance. So while the land acquisition for TAH is under process, the road needs to be maintained and kept motorable," he said announcing Rs 10 crore for the maintenance work.
He said the NDA government at the Centre is committed to
construct five lakh km of national highways in the country in five years.
"At present 16 km of NH are being constructed per day in the country and we are planning to increase it to 20 km per day," he said, adding out of total 2,570 km length of national highway in Arunachal, 653 km have been completed while 1917 km of NH are under progress.

"With improved highway infrastructure in the state, development process will be accelerated," he said, adding the Centre is contemplating to convert one lakh state highways into national highways in five years.
Terming Arunachal as a "beautiful" state, the Union Minister said the state with innumerable potential in horticulture, agriculture and tourism sector could be a developed state in future.
"Arunachal could be transformed to a major tourism destination of the country and for this, improvement of road infrastructure has been taken up by my ministry," he said, adding the ministry would soon formulate a policy by which roads in hill states could be protected by using international standard technology.

When asked about the proposed 2000-km long road from Tawang to Vijaynagar along the international border, Mandaviya said though the road was sanctioned but there remained major hindrance in land acquisition which is a state subject.
On the proposed East-West Industrial corridor from Brahmakund to Ruksin, he said the road was under "active consideration" of the Centre.
When his attention was drawn on the vast resources of medicinal plants in the state which are yet to be explored, Mandaviya assured to apprise the AYUSH Ministry to do extensive research on the available plants besides setting up Ayurvedic institutes in the state.

The union minister also asked Chief Secretary Shakuntala Gamlin, who was also present on the occasion, to prepare a list of potential sectors in the state and send to the Centre so that necessary schemes could be formulated.