AIZAWL: Cross-border road under the ambitious Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) is likely to be completed by June, a senior official of Mizoram Public Works Department (PWD) said on Wednesday.
PWD Engineer-In-Chief C Lalchhuana said that a 87.18 km stretch of road between Lawngtlai and Zochachhuah under the bilateral project is expected to be completed by June this year.
Officials of PWD led by Lalchhuana on Wednesday briefed state governor Dr. Haribabu Kambhampati about the status of various road projects in the state.
The officials informed Kambhampati that 98.01 per cent of the road component of the Kaladan project on Mizoram side (NH-501A) has been completed so far.
Lalchhuana said that 6 out of 8 bridges along the stretch of the road have been completed.
The remaining two bridges are likely to be completed by June if there is no further obstruction from landowners, he said.
KMTT Project was launched in 2008 under the erstwhile UPA government as part of Look East (Now Act East) policy.
The project, when completed, would first link the eastern Indian seaport of Kolkata to Sittwe seaport in Myanmar across the Bay of Bengal.
From Sittwe, the route will continue over river Kaladan to the western Myanmarese town of Paletwa.
Paletwa will then be connected to the India-Myanmar border by a 110-km-long road.
The international border (Zochachhuah or Zorinpui) will then be connected by road with southernmost Mizoram’s Lawngtlai town where the NH-501A passes by.
The construction of the road component in Mizoram side began in 2010.
Though the road project was initially scheduled to be completed by 2014, it has been delayed due to strikes by landowners along where the project passes through over compensation, Lalchhuana said.
Last month, Union Minister of State for External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh told reporters in Aizawl that the Kaladan project got delayed due to the political situation in Myanmar.
During the meeting with the Governor, PWD officials also informed him that 6 more projects are in the pipeline.
A proposal for the 6 projects, including a permanent bridge over Tuivai river to link Mizoram’s northeast with neighbouring Manipur, has been sent to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH), they said.
According to PWD, Mizoram has a total length of 1,509 kilometres of National Highways, out of which 650 km are under the PWD and the rest under National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL).
At present, PWD has 6 major on-going works to the tune of Rs. 2554.98 crores.
Some of these are – NH-108(Sairang – New Eden, Tripura) which is 94 percent completed; NH-501A(Lawngtlai – Zochachhuah, KMTTP) and under NH-2 (Seiling-Tuivai), a stretch of 17.5 kilometres has been completed recently.
3 new projects to the tune of Rs. 97.48 crores have been sanctioned.
Under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) from the year 2000, under 12 Phases, 351 projects covering a road length of 4482.732 kilometres worth Rs. 2840.08 crores have been sanctioned providing connectivity to 232 habitations.
300 projects have been completed so far with another 51 projects under various stages of completion which have connected 216 habitations so far; 16 habitations are yet to be connected, work is in progress.