Re: roads / lanes/ bridges.

[Santanu Roy]

As I understand it, the Guwahati-Silchar stretch of the NHDP East-West corridor  does not use the familiar Jowai-Badarpur road (NH44) which, I agree, is in pretty good shape but will require a major technological marvel to be transformed into a four lane highway. In fact, the route probably doesn't even touch Meghalaya. Its mostly Assam. From the MOT map it appears to branch off from NH 37 (the Goalpara - Guwahati - Jorabat - Kamargaon - Makum - Saikhoaghat road - with an added Guwahati bypass)  to NH 36 (the Manipur road from Nowgong to Dimapur) to NH 54 (the Lumding-Silchar-Aizawl road). I don't know exactly where the branch-offs are - can't make out from the map. I might be able to give you the exact route next week - after I talk to my father.

It is fairly unlikely that the veteran Conggress MP Rana Deb had anything to do with this. The project was born out of the BJP government's hat. The strong BJP presence in Barak Valley may be an explanatory variable - though anyone travelling through that part of the world will recognize how much worse the general state of infrastructure is out there compared even to Brahmaputra valley.

Santanu.




Ram Dhar wrote:

Saurav,

The traffic between Shillong to Badarpur --  divides at this point , one to Silchar  ----> Mizoram and other going to Karimganj ---> Tripura  is very heavy , trucks  carrying the goods for Tripura and Mizoram use this route. This is the only highway which connects Tripura and Mizoram with rest of India.

The road condition between Shillong and Badarpur is in excellent condition ( we drove on that highway 1.5 years back), much better then GAU - Shillong one ! Moreover, the highway between Shillong and Badarpur is also used by hundreds of trucks carrying coal  from Khleriat and Jowai -- located between Jowai and Badarpur.. BRTF has done really well to maintain Shillong  - Badarpur sector.I have my doubts if this road can be transformed into four lane highway, it was difficult enough to build that  two lane road in high mountanous terrain , leave alone increasing it to  four lanes

I don't think any political manuevering played out in selecting   Silchar  as the end point for west - east corridor, simply makes sense to connect two most remotely placed state of Indian union.  But I  must say out of all the MPs getting elected from Assam in the recent years , my fellow syleheti  cat  -  Rana Deb has served Silchar constituency very well . He has atleast got a few good things  for Silchar which comes in the  very bottom as far as getting development aid from Dispur  is concerned .

-Ram

>From: Saurav Pathak >To: deepjyoti kakati >CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Re: roads / lanes/ bridges. >Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 12:46:17 -0500 > > > > >deepjyoti kakati said on AssamNet: > >+ the brahmaputra crossing will be via the saraighat bridge. >+ so thats just 1 x 1. > >from there, how does it get to silchar? anjan-da suggested an >alternate route. > >i have read somewhere that the diesel consumption in a particular >sector was used to trace the route. so is the guwahati-silchar >traffic heavier than the dibrugarh-guwahati traffic? i know there >are generally a lot of trucks in the guwahati-shillong highway -- >mostly coal. but upper assam too produces much coal. and there >should be much traffic on nh37. do you have any idea how >the guwahati-silchar route won over the guwahati-dibrugarh route? > >-- >saurav

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