Last Updated on January 15, 2021 at 3:48 pm
A total of 265 roads in border areas with a length of 14,224.12 km have been marked for their development. Out of these roads, 61 roads with a length of 2295.63 km are in Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory and 44 roads with 3,185.95 km are in Ladakh Union Territory.
Earlier, Border Roads Organization (BRO) initiated a five-year Long Term Roll on Works Plan (LTRoWP) starting from 2018 to 2023. This plan was undertaken to improve or construct 265 roads of length 14,224.12 km, 4 Ditch Cum Bund (DCB) of length 353.22 km and 4 bridges in order to improve roads in Northern and North -Eastern Borders. According to the sources, the Defense Ministry listed out many reasons which caused delays in completion of road projects and maintenance of roads. These delays included getting late wildlife clearance, hard rock stretches, problems in availing construction material, land acquisition delay, inefficient contractors, absence of local labour.
Defense Ministry also cited difficulties which BRO had to go through in maintaining roads which already exist, sources said. These difficulties include uncomfortable weather, lack of labour, natural calamities like flash floods and cloud bursts, repeated landslides, state governments not allocating stone/sand quarries, social problems or social unrest in the region like insurgency, etc.
Back in the month of July 2020, the central government permitted Rs 1,691 crore so that the BRO can use this amount in highways construction in J&K UT and Uttarakhand for 2020-21. Out of this total amount, Rs 1,351.1 crore were granted to BRO for managing roads in J&K UT. Other than this amount, government also agreed to provide Rs 71 crore to Public Works Department (PWD) for highway works in J&K, Ladakh UT, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu.
The original amount for national highways work granted to state PWDs was Rs 2,269 crore, which is now increased to Rs 2,340 crore. Along with that, BRO was also granted Rs 1,691 crore which sums up to Rs 4,081 Crore for construction of national highways.
