Nearly Rs. 300 crores require for road maintenance annually

Our Correspondent
Kohima | October 10  

Minister for PWD (Roads & Bridges) Dr. Neikiesalie (Nicky) Kire today said that the status of the road network under PWD (Roads & Bridges) for the various categories of roads such as state highways, major district road, other district road and village road stands 12, 079 km.  

Speaking at the “Colloquium on Road Connectivity” here at State Banquet Hall, the minister said the entire state is connected by the road networks by more than 12,000 kms and 173 bridges.  

“The present conditions of all this road network in our state are not in the condition as it should have been. However, this network of road connectivity has brought about changes in the lives of the people,” he said.  

He said that PWD, R&B has envisaged and is giving all it efforts in the implementation of various projects under different programmes such as Inter State Connectivity, Central Road Fund, Economic Importance, Non-Lapsable Central Pool Resource, North Eastern Council, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and State Maintenance Fund.  

The minister maintained that inadequate maintenance of road is resulting in the disturbance of traffic, hampering economic growth and increase maintenance cost of vehicles.  

“For optimum utilization of road assets, timely maintenance is the need of the hour. Any inadequacy in timely maintenance will result in the erosion of the road assets and under no circumstances shall maintenance be regarded as a secondary issue,” Dr. Kire said.  

Keeping this importance of road maintenance as one of the foremost priority, he said, the department of PWD (R&B) had framed the Nagaland Road Maintenance Policy and forwarded to the state government for its approval and notification.  

He said to maintain and sustain the existing road infrastructure assets, the minister said the annual fund requirement has been worked out to nearly Rs. 300 crores annually.   He said a dedicated road maintenance fund can be considered and created with fund received or collected from different sources such as central and state grants, user charges and fees, cess, levies, tax revenues etc.