Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated the work on two key economic corridors in Raipur that will connect the capital city of Chhattisgarh with Visakhapatnam and Dhanbad.
Along with two key economic corridors, three other national highway projects were kicked off in the state.
The most important of the lot is the six-lane greenfield Raipur-Visakhapatnam corridor of 464 km length which will connect the mineral rich region with the port city. The new highway will reduce the distance between the two cities by 130 km and cut travel time by four hours, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said at the inauguration.
“Today Chhattisgarh is connecting with two economic corridors”, the Prime Minister said, adding that the Raipur-Dhanbad Economic Corridor and Raipur- Vishakhapatnam Economic Corridor are going to change the fortunes of the region.
Under Phase 1 of the Bharatmala project, out of the total length of 34,800 km of highways planned at the cost of Rs 5.35 trillion , economic corridors of 9,000 km are to be built. Of the total length of economic corridors planned, work on 3,400 km has been completed.
Raipur-Visakhapatnam highway is one of the four priority corridors that the government is currently focussing on. The other three in the list are the 1,267-km Amritsar-Jamnagar, Delhi-Amritsar-Katra (670 km), and Chennai-Bangalore (260 km) corridors.
The total cost of these corridors is expected to be `90,000 crore and the government is looking for innovative ways of financing them, including asset-based securitisation. For all four, Special Purpose Vehicle on the lines of the one floated for Delhi-Mumbai expressway, DME Developers, might be floated.
Modi unveils projects in UP
The PM also launched several projects in Gorakphur and Varanasi on Friday. In Gorakhpur, he addressed the closing ceremony of the centenary celebrations of Gita Press. He also launched two new Vande Bharat Express trains from the Gorakhpur railway station.
In Varanasi, he inaugurated or laid the foundation stone for 29 development projects worth `12,100 crore. — PTI