Itanagar: The Ministry for Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has included the “reconstruction” of the 18-km-long road from Jeypore to Hukanjuri in Assam’s Dibrugarh district (NH-315A) in its annual plan for 2021-22.
The announcement to include the vital road in the MoRTH’s annual plan was made by Union Road Transport and Highways minister Nitin Gadkari.
The development comes as a big relief for the denizens of the Tirap and Longding districts in Arunachal Pradesh for whom the said stretch of road acts as a lifeline.
The inter-state road which links Assam and Arunachal has been lying in a dilapidated condition for several years.
“The work of reconstruction of the pavement from Jeypore to Hukanjuri section of NH-315A (18.12 km) in the state of Assam has been included in the Annual Plan for 2021-22,” said the union minister in a letter to Borduria-Bogapani MLA and former minister Wanglin Lowangdong.
Lowangdong had in October last year written to the union minister appealing him to sanction the said stretch of road in the interest of the people of both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
The legislator in his letter had mentioned that the deplorable condition of the road was not only causing immense difficulties to the people of Tirap and Longding districts but was also hampering the movement of security forces.
“The condition of this portion of the road is so bad that communication from Arunachal Pradesh to the rest of India has been frequently hampered and disrupted leading to immense difficulties in the lives of the people of Tirap and Longding districts for whom this road is a lifeline. The movement of security personnel in the above sensitive districts and transportation of essential day to day commodities, development materials, life saving drugs etc. from Assam have also been drastically hit due to the almost non existence of this portion of NH-315A particularly in this time of pandemic,” Lowangdong’s letter to the union minister read.
The MLA had also written similar letters to Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Naharkatia MLA Taranga Gogoi and Union Minister of State (MoS) for Food Processing Industries, Rameshwar Teli asking them to initiate suitable steps to repair/maintain and upgrade the said road.
The MoRTH had in April this year approved the widening of the existing 2-lane road with paved shoulder from Hukanjuri to Khonsa section of NH-315A (Package-C) on engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) mode for Arunachal with a budget Rs. 182.55 crore.
