The Hindu Business Line : `92 pc of Golden Quadrilateral project to be over by fiscal end'

A MAJORITY of works under the Golden Quadrilateral project - which aims to connect New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, through four- and six-lane national highways - is likely to be completed by the end of the current fiscal.

Addressing presspersons here on Thursday, Mr K.H. Muniyappa, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Surface Transport and Highways, said that 85 per cent of the project work has been completed at a cost of Rs 23,000 crore.

Of the total length of 5,846 km in the Golden Quadrilateral project, work has been completed in 5,000 km.

"Ninety-two per cent of the Golden Quadrilateral work will be completed by the end of the current fiscal. The remaining stretch will be completed next year," he said. Six km of roads are being laid every day under the project.

The length of Golden Quadrilateral network in Karnataka is 625 km, of which 446 km have been already completed.

Stating that the North-South and East-West corridor projects will be completed by December 2007, he said Rs 2,677 crore has been spent on 776 km of these projects.

The total length of both the corridors is 7,300 km.

Four-lane highways

Nearly 10,000 km of roads in the country will be converted into four-lane ones in the third phase of National Highway Development Project (NHDP) on build, own, transfer basis.

Of these roads, work is being implemented in 4,000 km of roads under NHDP phase III.

These roads have been identified based on their traffic potential, he said.

Asked about the position in Karnataka, he said that 457 km of highways in the State are being taken up for four-lane conversion work under NHDP phase-III.

Stating that the Committee on Infrastructure has taken a decision for developing national highways under NHDP phase 1 to phase 7 at a cost of Rs 1.72 lakh crore by 2012, he said nearly 50,000 km of highways would be developed by then.

Work on the conversion of 20,000 km of highways to two-lanes would be soon taken up under NHDP-IV, he added.

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