The Department of Roads and Bridges soon will be upgrading, strengthening and widening the state highway along with major district roads across the state.

Chief Engineer, Roads and Bridges Department Mr.GT Bhutia informed that a total of four major projects in the state has been approved and sanctioned to a total strength of Rs.636 crores by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) Government of India.  The roads that will be covered under this project are Tarku, Damthang, Namchi road total project cost Rs.100 Crores, Melli, Manpur, Namchi Road with construction cost of Rs. 118 crores, Singtam, Tarku, Rabongla, Legship, Pelling to Gyalshing road Rs. 316 crores and Naya Bazar to Legship road construction cost Rs. 102 crores.

Mr. Bhutia informed that the roads that will be constructed will be with at carriage width of 7.5 meters and the designs prepared will be of highest quality too. Informing about the needs of widening, upgrading of roads Mr. Bhutia said that most of the roads in state were constructed during the Chogyal regime  along with a some during the time of the  subsequent government, those roads constructed were not designed to carry the volume of existing traffic in the state.

Earlier the number of vehicles and loading pattern were less but with the development of state presently the earlier roads designed are unable to carry the present capacity. The coming up of hydro power projects, industries and private companies the loading capacity of the vehicles has increased invariably which is more than 10 tons. Considering the development of state and the carrying capacity of the road the strengthening, widening and up gradation of roads in state is being focused.

Mr. Bhutia added that for carrying out the construction work of the 4 projects a total of 217 pre qualification documents have been submitted and presently the documents are under evaluation and after completion of scrutiny the selected companies will be called for financial bidding and the whole process will take atleast 3-4 months time for completion.

Adding more Mr. Bhutia stated that with the prior approval of the state government numerous proposals of construction of new roads in state has been submitted to MoRTH under the 12th five year plan inclusive of NEC, NLCPR (Ministry of DoNER) for possible funding to widen, upgrade and strengthen the road connectivity of the state as well.Informing further Mr. Bhutia in regards to the monsoon calamity along the state high way said that the department have already placed enough resources, adequate machineries to keep the roads open and added that those roads which are not being upgraded or strengthened the patch

repairing works have been started considering the smooth, free movement of vehicles.Furthermore Mr. Bhutia stated that by 2015 the government and the department concerned expects to have all the major roads widened and upgraded too.

Under Asian Development Bank project the road connecting from Manpur, Jorethang till Namchi is also in the pipe line for up gradation and widening. Whereas Sichey- Ranka road widening, up gradation with carrying width of 7.5 meters is also under the pipe line but the Gangtok bye pass connecting Ranipool with Burtuk  (Double lane) with a construction cost of Rs. 100 crores is under execution and the 9th mile bye pass (Bye passing the 9th mile land slide) with a construction cost of Rs. 30 crores is under the approval process from the MoRTH.

In regards to the cooperative society works stated that the cooperative works in respect to roads in state has been very successful. Mr. Bhutia asserted that “as I have visited, inspected the construction sites recently and found that the works initiated are good and qualitative and added that the objective of the state government in starting cooperative movement in state has turned out to be huge success with respect to roads and bridges department”.

Courtesy: Sikkim Mail

 

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