The Hindu Business Line : Bengal initiatives to improve road conditions

Dr Ashim Dasgupta, State Finance Minister, said that Rs 215 crore of funds had already been sanctioned by his department for the purpose. Another Rs 10 crore would be provided by the Zilla Parishads of the 18 districts covered by the road network.

Work will be carried out by the Public Works Department and its contractors who would have a furnish a three-year guarantee on their work, Dr Dasgupta told reporters at the state secretariat. The expertise of the Pune-based Road Research Institute would also be harnessed to check the quality of work to prevent patch-work jobs.

In this context, Mr Amar Chowdhury, PWD Minister, said that strict quality control measures were being followed to improve the quality of work. The model of built-in conditions, followed in case of externally aided projects and Hudco assisted projects would be followed now by the state PWD department too, he said

The repair work is slated to start in December 1 and the minister felt that improvements would be noticeable by March 2004.

The project is scheduled to be completed before the onset of monsoons in June.

The State has a road network of 18,000 km but the condition of the roads leave much to be desired and many a times lack of proper roads had been listed by entrepreneurs as one of the obstacles to investment in the state. Among the roads, which would be covered under this project are those in Howrah district, the Barrackpore Trunk Road (in north 24 parganas) — an arterial road linking the city's northern fringes with the industrial area of Barrackpore — , the Grand Trunk Road, roads in Nadia district near Kalyani, and roads in North Bengal and Burdwan.

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