Delhi-Amritsar National Highway to complete by May

Delhi-Amritsar National Highway 1 will be completed by May next year as the contractor has started construction work on the remaining portion of the highway, an NHAI official said.

The 470 km long Amritsar-Delhi national highway would be completed by May 15 next year except for a 20 km stretch which would be finished by March 2016, Member Finance, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Satish Chandra said.

Chandra is on a two-day visit to monitor the progress of work on the 20 km stretch of NH-1 from Bidhipur Railway crossing to Dhilwan and Amritsar-Pathankot National highway.

Speaking about the National Highways network in Punjab, Chandra said construction work on the Dera Bassi flyover has started and is expected to cost Rs 130 crore. He said the work on six km stretch of Ludhiana–Ferozepur road has also been initiated and the remaining 6 km stretch between Ludhiana- Chandigarh would be completed by February 15 next year.

Replying to a question about the four-laning work of Ludhiana-Moga-Ferozepur national highway which had been abandoned by a private construction company, Chandra said the company has agreed to restore work on it soon.

He said the network of National Highways in Punjab would be complete with the conclusion of four-laning works of Amrtisar–Ferozepur and Amritsar-Bathinda national highways next year.

He said each district in the country would be connected to National Highways with three roads and added that the state governments have been asked to submit their plans of declaring the three roads to be connected to national highways and NHAI would bear all construction charges.

On the rising toll plaza charges, Chandra said the rates would decline to forty per cent in 2023 as the contractors would realise cost of construction by then and afterwards toll rates would remain at 40 per cent for the maintenance of the highways in the country.

He said the National Highway Authority had recently taken a decision that no contractor would be allowed to impose toll taxes on the highways till the completion of its construction work.
Chandra said 8000 km of national highways would be completed by March 2015 and the remaining 12,000 km would be completed by 2017.