BRO DG briefs MoS Jitendra Singh on road, bridge projects in J-K, North East
Jan 05, 2021
New Delhi [India], January 5 : Lt General Rajeev Chaudhry, the new Director-General, Border Road Organisation (BRO), on Tuesday, briefed Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), about the ongoing and proposed road and bridge projects in Jammu and Kashmir and North East.
The BRO DG said that Jammu and Kashmir had witnessed unprecedented progress in road and bridge construction in the last 5 to 6 years and about a dozen BRO bridges have come up in the single Lok Sabha constituency of Udhampur-Kathua-Doda itself, the notable among which are Atal Setu at Basohli and Devika Bridge at Udhampur, according to the release by Ministry of Development of North-East Region.
The proposed Chattergala tunnel in the Union Territory will connect district Kathua with district Dodaenroute the new Highway via Basohli-Bani through Chattergalla to touch Bhaderwah and Doda.
This is going to be a historic landmark project providing all-weather alternate road connectivity between the two distant regions and reducing the travel time from Doda to Lakhanpur on the Punjab border to just around four hours, the release read.
"It was going to be a 6.8 Km long tunnel for which the Feasibility Survey has already been conducted by BRO. The tunnel is likely to take about 4 years for completion after the execution work starts and its construction cost is around Rs. 3,000 crore. It is going to be a revolutionary game-changer. This will not only generate revenue but also job generation," it added.
Moreover, the all-weather road connectivity will bring ease of business, shorten the travel time and also provide a unique opportunity for places like Bani and Bhaderwah to emerge as tourist destinations of national repute.
Furthermore, the Minister received an update about BRO projects in different States, particularly about four road projects funded by the North Eastern Council (NEC) under the aegis of the Ministry of DoNER in Mizoram and two BRO projects in Manipur, the release added.
