Rs 61,500-crore highway corridor to connect Siliguri with Guwahati, Shillong

NEW DELHI: Government will soon build a 630-km corridor connecting Siliguri in West Bengal with Guwahati (Assam) and Shillong (Meghalaya) at a cost of Rs 61,500 crore, announced road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday. The road transport ministry has also taken up an expressway connectivity project from Gorakhpur (UP) to Siliguri.Once completed, the two corridors will provide high-speed connectivity between UP and North East.Speaking at an event, Gadkari added that the 630-km corridor, which will be the “lifeline” of North East, will have the mix of construction of greenfield (new) stretches and upgradation of existing highway connectivity to make the end-to-end travel seamless. He added that the first leg of the corridor, Siliguri to Guwahati (400 km), will be built at an investment of Rs 30,000 crore and the project alignment is in approval stage. “This has been proposed to improve connectivity between West Bengal and North East, and also the strategic Chicken’s Neck,” Gadkari said.The second section of the corridor that the minister announced will connect Jorabat (Guwahati) and Barapani (Shillong). Gadkari said this greenfield section will reduce the current distance of 100 km to 66 km and cut travel time from two-and-half-hour to one hour.The minister said the work order for 165-km greenfield highway, the third leg, connecting Shillong with Silchar will be issued in Nov. “This corridor will reduce the current 230 km to barely 165 km. The travel time will also be reduced by half — from the current eight hours to only four hours,” Gadkari said.He said at present, 265 projects covering around 4,700 km have been undertaken in Assam at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore. Another 31 projects covering about 1,470 km, with an estimated cost of Rs 92,000 crore, are planned.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.