Meghalaya: Tura–Dalu road progresses, albeit slowly due to of bottlenecks

TURA

The much-needed boost to infrastructure through National Highway 51 to Dalu from Tura, has been showing progress.

The project, under contract to Monoranjan Brahma through the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), began in November 2018, though problems continued.

The company is headquartered in Kokrajhar in Assam with the road being constructed as a proprietorship with NHIDCL.

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The total stretch of road contracted to Brahma constructions is 54 kilometres. While 44 kilometres of the road lies between Tura to Dalu, another 10 kilometres between Tura to Rongram is yet to take off due to land acquisition issues.

“While the initial construction started in November 2018, there were issues with land acquisition which slowed us down almost a year. We only started serious construction on the road from the end of 2019. We are hopeful of finishing the work by March 2022,” said site construction manager, Samarjit Borah.

Currently, a stretch of 12 kilometres of the road, between the outskirts of Tura to 12th Mile, has been blacktopped, with some yet to be touched.

Tura is the nerve centre of the region and Dalu is fast becoming an export and import hub as it is close to the Indo-Bangla border. The entire highway would be a two-lane road and will connect the NH–62. The entire stretch has already been renamed NH-217.

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The road from Rongram to Paikan is also in the pipeline for re-laying.

“We are still unsure whether the same stretch of road will be redone or the route will be different as the DPR is being completed. However, things are moving in the right direction, and we expected work to start by the year-end on the Rongram–Paikan stretch,” said the NHIDCL source.

Meanwhile, work on the two-lane Baghmara–Ranikor road has also begun.

However, though initial surveys were done, a stretch of over 150 kilometres is yet to be cleared along NH–62.

National Highway sources could also not confirm if there was anything in the pipeline for the road, which is among the worst in the Garo Hills region.

(Edited by Christopher Gatphoh)