Standard Post with Image

Ministry of Road Transport & Highways15-March, 2012:Road Building in Neglected Areas.

Road Building in Neglected Areas

  • This Ministry is primarily responsible for the development and maintenance of National Highways (NH) network in the country. The State Governments are responsible for development of State roads. The development and maintenance of NHs including expansion of NH network is a continuous process. The works on NHs, including strengthening / upgradation of the NHs, are accordingly taken up from time to time as per the traffic density, inter-se priority and availability of funds. The expansion of NH network is done from time to time depending upon the requirement of connectivity, availability of funds and inter-se priority based upon the proposals received from the State Governments to declare state roads as new NHs.     

  • This Ministry has no specific programme for development of roads connectivity in neglected areas and untouched zones of the country. However, the Government has taken up various programmes such as Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the North East (SARDP-NE) including Arunachal Pradesh Package and Special Programme for Development of Roads in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas covering 34 districts in eight states (namely in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh). These programmes are, inter-alia, envisaged to promote socio-economic development in these regions.

  • Apart from this, the Government also provides funds to the States for development of State Roads under the Central Roads Fund (CRF) and Inter-State Connectivity (ISC) & Economic Importance (EI) Schemes.

  • The Government has approved in principle the proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) for setting up of Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) at 13 locations on the India-Pakistan, India-Nepal, India-Bangladesh and India-Myanmar borders for facilitating trade and commerce. The Phase-I of the programme includes development of 6 ICPs at Petrapole, Moreh, Raxaul, Wagah, Dawki and Akhaura, including their back linkages (road connectivity) on priority. This Ministry is taking necessary action for improvement of the NH back linkages for these proposed ICPs under Phase-I for harmonizing their completion with the setting up of the ICPs. The development of the road linkage other than the NHs is to be taken up by the Ministry of Home Affairs through concerned State Governments.

  • This information was given by the Minister of State of Road Transport and Highways, Shri Jitin Prasada in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

Source