State cabinet approves construction of 552km border road

PATNA: The road construction department (RCD) would soon initiate the process for the construction of 552.293km of two-lane border road parallel to the Indo-Nepal border to connect Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) outposts spread between West Champaran district on the west to Kishanganj district in the east. The state cabinet gave its sanction to it on Friday.
The border road would be constructed at a cost of Rs 3,547 crore. While the state government would bear 53.3% of its cost worth Rs 1,890.45 crore, the Centre would bear the remaining 46.7% of the expenditure amounting to Rs 1,656.55 crore, cabinet secretariat department principal secretary Ravi Kant said after the cabinet meeting.
He said the state cabinet gave its approval to the utilization of Rs 2,552.86 crore in the first phase of the work. The remaining amount would be released in course of time. The budgetary provisions were made for the expenditure on the project, being considered "ambitious" both by the Centre and the state government, last year itself.
According to RCD secretary Pratyaya Amrit, the border road would start from Gobarahiya village near Madanpur on the national highway (NH)-28 at the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border in West Champaran district and end at Galgaliya in the east in Kishnaganj district after passing through East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Supaul and Araria districts.
The border road would be constructed on 93.5km of embankments of water resources department and 205km of rural works department roads. Besides, 128km of NH sections would also be used as alignment with the border road. The road would have 40 major bridges and 81 medium and small bridges, Amrit said.
He said Rs 868 crore would be spent for acquiring 3,370 acre of land, utility shifting and environment clearance. The state government is taking loans worth Rs 995 crore from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) to be spent on the construction of bridges and road alignments.
Amrit said land acquisition and related work, coupled with floating of tenders for work allotment, would be completed during rainy season as the central government had already given its sanction to the construction of 200km of the border road.
The process would be completed for actual work allotment during the next four-month period, and the work itself would start in November this year, Amrit said, adding the construction of the border road has to be completed over the next three years, ending in the 2015-16 financial year.