Patchy pace of North-East highway projects

Over the last four years, the Narendra Modi government has paid unprecedented policy attention on improving road connectivity to the land-locked North-East States. Projects worth ₹31,000 crore are under implementation and schemes worth another ₹1,33,000-crore are to be awarded.

Yet, a lot remains to be done, especially in Assam, the largest and the key North-East State, to improve regional connectivity. Ground level changes are slow to happen due to local reasons.

“Road conditions have definitely improved but not as much as expected,” says Thokchom Jotin Singh, General Secretary of the Manipur Chamber of Commerce.

He had just taken a road trip covering the seven North-East States to take stock of the highway development programme.

Ups and downs

The progress of highway has been good and bad. For instance, the 264-km Shillong-Nongstoin-Tura road has been upgraded into a two-lane highway, thereby, connecting the two flanks of Meghalaya.

“Meghalaya has made rapid progress in road and digital connectivity. Even rural roads have improved,” said another Chamber representative.

Road construction has also improved in Arunachal Pradesh, as is evident from the project updates provided by the National Highway Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), which was incorporated by the Modi government in July 2014, to pursue highway connectivity in NE, J&K, Himachal, Uttarakhand, and Andaman and Nicobar.

But there is still a long way to go. At a recent seminar in Guwahati, P D Sona, Parliamentary Secretary (Tourism) of Arunachal Pradesh, regretted the pathetic infrastructure vis-a-vis neighbouring areas of China.

Also due to various issues starting from failure of contractors to local problems, the highway development is not seamless. “Construction of the Trans Arunachal Highway made reasonable progress in the western part when compared to the East,” said an official.

Uneven or patchy development is a major problem in the North-East. The travelling time from Imphal (Manipur) to Silchar and Guwahati in Assam has reduced drastically following the upgradation of the 211-km Imphal-Jiribam section. But connectivity to Kohima remains poor as work on 137-km Kohima-Imphal section has not progressed on the Nagaland side.

On the brighter side, the four-laning of the 68-km Kohima-Dimapur section is apace. It will bring Nagaland closer to Guwahati.

The project is quite complex because the effort ia also on to straighten it; local issues had forced many bends and turns, making heavy vehicular movement difficult.

Tripura, on the other hand, is seeing fast progress in highway connectivity from Agartala to Sabroom on the Bangladesh border in the South.

But the State’s connectivity with Guwahati has suffered due to the poor condition of the road from Silchar to Tripura. This section will be developed under Bharatmala.

Slow progress in Assam

The policy attention notwithstanding, public sentiment about road projects is taking a beating particularly in Assam, the largest North-East State both in terms of geography and population, which has a BJP government since May 2016.

“I don’t see any improvement in road conditions,” says a planter from Jorhat, who travels on NH-37, which connects Guwahati with Upper Assam districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh.

A look at the NHIDCL dashboard shows that the four-laning of NH37 and NH52, two major highways in Assam, has barely progressed.

The 120-km distance from Sivasagar to Numaligarh takes three back-breaking hours.

The reason is faulty planning when projects were awarded without ensuring land availability. This coupled with weak-finances of many top contractors impacted progress in the initial years, following takeover of the projects by NHIDCL.

The company recently scrapped at least three such contracts for lack of progress in the nearly-100-km section on NH37. Work on these sections may now progress fast, as new contracts are roped in following availability of at least 80 per cent of land.

This is, however, part of the explanation behind the delay. According to sources involved in construction, corruption and lethargy in the State administration are impacting road projects in Assam.

“It is pressure from Delhi that is keeping the projects going,” he said.

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