Under Kaladan project Cross broder rd will completed in June

Aizawl: A cross-border road under the ambitious Kaladan Multi-modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) is likely to be completed by June, a senior Mizoram Public Works Department (PWD) official said on Wednesday.

PWD Engineer-in-Chief C Lalchhuana said that the 87.18 km long road between Lawngtlai and Zochachhuah under the two-way project is expected to be completed by June this year.
PWD officials led by Lalchhuana apprised the state governor Dr. Haribabu Kambhampati on Wednesday about the status of various road projects in the state. Officials informed Kambhampati that 98.01 percent of the road portion of Kaldan project on Mizoram side (NH-501A) has been completed so far. Lalchhuana said that 6 out of 8 roadside bridges have been completed.
He said that if there are no further obstacles from the landowners, the remaining two bridges will be completed by June.

The KMTT project was launched in 2008 as part of the Look East (Now Act East) policy under the previous UPA government.
The project, when completed, will be the first to connect the eastern Indian port of Kolkata with Myanmar’s Sittwe port across the Bay of Bengal.

From Sittwe, the route will continue up the Kaladan River to the western Myanmar town of Paletwa.
Paletwa will then be connected to the India-Myanmar border through a 110-km long road.

The international border (Zochachhuah or Zorinpui) will then be connected by road to Lawngtlai town in South Mizoram through which NH-501A passes.

Construction of the road section towards Mizoram started in 2010.
Although the road project was initially supposed to be completed by 2014, it has been delayed due to strikes by landowners where the project has been overcharged, Lalchhuana said.

Last month, Union Minister of State for External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh told reporters in Aizawl that the Kaladan project has been 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.

He informed that the proposal of 6 projects, including a permanent bridge over Towai river to connect the north-east of Mizoram with neighboring Manipur, has been sent to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH).
According to the PWD, the total length of national highways in Mizoram is 1,509 km, of which 650 km is under the PWD and the rest under the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL).

Presently PWD has 6 major ongoing works worth Rs.600000. 2554.98 crores.
Some of them are – NH-108 (Siring – New Eden, Tripura) which is 94% complete. A section of 17.5 km under NH-501A (Lawngtlai – Zochachhuah, KMTTP) and NH-2 (Seiling-Tuivai) has been completed recently.
97.48 crores of new projects worth Rs 3 billion have been approved.
Since the year 2000 under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), under 12 phases, 351 projects covering a road length of 4482.732 km worth Rs.2000 crores. 2840.08 crore has been sanctioned to provide connectivity to 232 villages.

So far 300 projects have been completed with 51 more projects in various stages of completion which have connected 216 settlements so far. 16 settlements are yet to be connected, work is in progress.