Strategic Arunachal Highway project progressing slowly

The speed of implementation of the 2,400-kilometre long strategic Trans-Arunachal Highway project in the Frontier State of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India has been on the slower side because of various factors including adverse weather conditions and law and order problem in certain areas in the FrontierState.

The strategic TAH project is part of the Prime Minister’s Package announced for infrastructure development in the bordering hill state of on January 31, 2008.

The TAH has been planned as two-lane highway that extends from Tawang in the western part of Arunachal Pradesh to Kanubari in the east covering 1,559 km. The highway project will touch eleven of the existing district head quarters in the hill state.

The remaining five districts and the state capital Itanagar will be connected to the ‘Trans-Arunachal Highway’ by link roads which cover another 848 km. That makes the total road length of the project around 2,400 km.

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Dr C P Joshi on Tuesday informed that that out of the total 2,400 Km (approximately) of the TAH work had been awarded so far for 1,500 Km.

However, so far only 100 Km road could have been completed. He said the work in the mega TAH project had been hampered because of hurdles like unfriendly weather condition that provide for insufficient working hours, problem maintaining proper flow of construction materials because of frequent disruption in road communication due to rain induced landslips in Arunachal Pradesh.

He further said that law and order problem in certain part of Arunachal Pradesh too had contributed to delay in implementation of the mega highway project. He, however, assured to address the issues in coordination with Arunachal Pradesh government to facilitate speedy implementation of the project.

The Union Minister was here to review the status of implementation of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme -- northeast for development of the road network in the strategic northeastern region.

The SARDP-NE programme envisages providing road connectivity to all the district headquarters of the N-E region by minimum 2-Lane highway standards.

The programme is planned in two phases (A&B) including Arunachal Package covers 6,418 Km at an estimated cost of Rs 33,688 crore. So far, about 1000 Km have been completed. The Phase A of the project is targeted to be completed by June, 2016.