The highways ministry is going to construct two lane disaster proof 889 km road connecting Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri in Uttarakhand at a cost of Rs 12,000 crore. Project is in final stages and likely to invite bids for road stretches in October.
The Char Dham Yatra is one of the popular Hindu pilgrimage tour in India visited of lacks of pilgrims. Three million tourists registered for the yatra in 2012, but the number has declined since floods and landslides killed about 5,000 persons the following year. This year, 750,000 pilgrims have registered.
The road network will be built in seven packages over three years. The ministry is going to award each engineering, procurement and construction contractor projects not more than Rs 1,000 crore.
Project reports for the new road network have been prepared with buy-ins from the Geological Survey of India, Survey of India, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Central Water Commission, and Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre.
The ministries of aviation, tourism, home affairs, revenue, forests and irrigation also contributed, a highways ministry official said.
Suggestions from the Border Roads Organisation, the Uttarakhand public works department and local villagers were considered for realignments and bypasses.
“The consultations were designed to make the pilgrimage less arduous and reduce the impact of natural calamity,” the official added.
News Src : Business Standard
Published Date: September 29, 2015
