OUR CORRESPONDENT
Itanagar: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday reviewed the progress of the ambitious Frontier Highway project in Arunachal Pradesh. Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highway, reviewed the progress of the project in New Delhi along with Earth Science Minister Kiren Rijiju, MoS for Road Transport and Highway General V K Singh.
“Reviewed the progress of the Frontier Highway Project with Union Minister Shri @KirenRijiju Ji, Union MoS General Shri @Gen_VKSingh Ji and MP Shri @TapirGao Ji in New Delhi today,” Gadkari posted in X.
“It is a flagship project poised to have a profound impact on the socio-economic landscape of Arunachal Pradesh and the entire North East region,” the minister said in another social media post.
Sharing the information, Rijiju posted in X, “Had meeting with Union Minister @nitin_gadkari Ji to review the progress of major roads in Arunachal Pradesh including the historic Frontier Highway. Senior officers of MoRTH, BRO and NHIDCL attended the meeting.”
The Arunachal Frontier Highway (AFH) officially notified as the National Highway NH-913 and also called Bomdila-Vijaynagar Highway (BVH), will start from Bomdila in and pass through Nafra, Huri, and Monigong, which is closer to the LAC. The road will end in Vijaynagar, near the India-Myanmar border.
Some of the important places that will be linked through the road are Tawang, Mago Upper Subansiri, Upper Siang, Mechuka, Tuting, Dibang Valley, Kibithoo, Changlang, and Dong.
The highway includes, 800 km greenfield section and network of new tunnels and bridges, and is a 2-lane paved-shoulder national highway along the India-China border.
The 1,748 km-long highway would cost Rs 27,000 crore and total cost including six additional inter-corridors is Rs 40,000 crore. In some places, the highway will run as close as 20 km from the LAC.
To be constructed by MoRTH in nine packages, all packages will be approved by the end of 2024-25 and construction will be completed by March 31, 2027. Of the total route, 800 km is greenfield while the rest, brownfield, would be upgraded and tunnels would be built.
The highway in the north and east Arunachal along the China border, would complement the Trans-Arunachal Highway (through the middle of Arunachal) and the Arunachal East-West Corridor (in south Arunachal in foothills along the Assam border) as major highways spanning the whole state, pursuing the Look East connectivity policy.
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