NH: lahe lahe

Some statistics recently released by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have revealed that Assam is lagging behind in a big way in the construction and development of national highways when compared to most other states of the country. A prominent news report carried on the front page of this newspaper on Friday said that during the current financial year (2023–24) until June 30, 2023, only 13 km of national highway were either constructed or developed in Assam. Significantly, during these three months (April, May, and June), 2,250 km of national highway were either constructed or developed in the country. This puts the national highway construction agencies, including NHAI, to shame and makes its pace of work comparable to that of a snail. As has been reported, the statistics released by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have shown that Maharashtra has topped the list of either constructing or developing 340 km of national highways during the above-mentioned three months, followed by Uttarakhand (197 km), Rajasthan (196 km), Tamil Nadu (179 km), Karnataka (130 km), and Andhra Pradesh (108 km). Even Arunachal Pradesh has recorded the completion of 83 km of national highway in the months taken into consideration. The said news report has also pointed out that in the financial year 2022–23, altogether 310 km of national highways were either constructed or developed in Assam, compared to 10,457 km of construction or development all over the country. No specific reason has been cited in the Union Ministry’s report about the slow pace of national highway construction in Assam. But it is now a common suspicion that the state government has failed to exert the required pressure on the NHAI to complete the on-going national highway projects at a good pace. The status of work on the Jorhat-Sivasagar-Dibrugarh stretch of the four-lane highway is enough to prove the lackadaisical attitude of the NHAI towards completing highway projects in Assam. NHAI has probably acquired the “lahe-lahe” characteristic of the Assamese people in this aspect!