Skip to content Skip to navigation

Connectivity: Lifeline of Assam

By editor |

The second bridge over the Brahmaputra is part of the East-West corridor, which would connect the North East Region with the rest of the country. At the same time, a high speed highway from Silchar to Srirampur is being constructed in Assam at an investment of Rs 6000 crores.The mighty and sacred river, the Brahmaputra, is the lifeline of the people of Assam. A new bridge over Brahmaputra will serve the people of Assam as well as the States of Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. It will provide a new path towards progress and prosperity. The UPA Government is committed to the rapid development of the North East Region. This project is scheduled to be completed by December 2008. It will reduce the overall travel time and distance between the North East region and rest of India.

Connectivity for Development

he Central Government is also committed to improving the road connectivity between the North Eastern states as well. The Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North East will construct new roads and help improve existing roads. It will connect state capitals, district headquarters and remote areas. In the first phase, it will be covering 1310 km of roads by investing Rs 4618 crore.India needs world class roads and bridges. Roads are the arteries of an economy.

Easy connectivity between different regions, between villages and towns, between farms and markets, will ensure spread of prosperity. The country has set a growth target of 9% to 10% over the next decade. It has achieved a growth rate of about 9% in the last two years and in the near future, the economy has the potential of achieving a growth rate in excess of 10%. The other task that needs to be addressed is to ensure that the fruits of this extremely rapid development is evenly spread among all regions and among all sections of society. For this, one needs to improve the condition of our agriculture, increase the employment in industry, and ensure that the youth get more jobs and farmers get higher incomes.

Need to Develop Industries

his is especially true for the North-Eastern region. The agriculture in the state has to improve a great deal. It needs to have more irrigation. It needs to achieve greater productivity. The North East, and particularly Assam, also needs more industries. The people of Assam are hardworking and skilful. However, lack of industries has affected growth of employment opportunities. And poor connectivity has in itself been a cause of poor industrialization. Bridges and highways are the best way to bridge the connectivity gap and enable rapid industrialization of Assam.
What is true for Assam is true for the rest of India as well. The need is greater investment in roads, ports, telecommunication, airports, railways and power. India has one of the largest road networks in the world and the Government has given highest priority to the development of better quality National Highways and construction of rural roads. The UPA Government has launched Bharat Nirman under which investments are made in rural roads, telephones, safe drinking water and electricity in every village.

Improved road connectivity will help in taking agricultural produce to markets and create new possibilities of employment, and reduce poverty. With this objective in view, UPA Government is investing thousands of crores of Rupees in road construction.

Ambitious Programme

The government is planning to implement an ambitious programme of Rs 2,20,000 crores till 2012 for improving the National Highway network. Several stretches will be improved to 4-lane or 6-lane width across the country. Most of these works will be taken up on a Public Private Partnership basis.

The National Highways Authority of India has awarded contracts for four laning of 600 kms of National Highways in Assam. This is the highest rate of road development in this region since the start of National Highways Development Programme.

Assam has now become a major beneficiary of the road programme. When these road projects are completed they will give a big boost to the industrial and agricultural sectors, to tourism and other service sectors in this region. Projects like this bridge across the mighty Brahmaputra will transform the lives and the economy of the region.
Adaptation from the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s speech at the laying of the foundation stone for the 2nd Bridge over river Brahmaputra in Guwahati .

(PIB )

  • 23408 reads

Add new comment

Other Contents by Author

Stress on effect border management

Guwahati Frontier BSF steps up effective border management and supervision of functioning of field formations along the 495 km of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam and West Bengal. Addressing the troops during the First Raising Day of the Frontier at Patgaon in Guwahati on Monday Inspector General P K Wahal said that the new Frontier have been carrying out civic action programmes. He said that the troops on the border have been found dominating their respective area of responsibility round-the-clock through observation posts, patrolling on foot, patrolling both on vehicle and boat during day time. In addition to human efforts, troops have been making extensive use of force multipliers...

IAF chopper to lift strayed rhinoceros

Stages have been set to airlift a rhinoceros to a national sanctuary after the rare animal reached Sualkuchi in the outskirt of Guwahati.The full grown rhinoceros is believed to have strayed from the Pobitora sanctuary which is being guarded around the clock against poachers with an IAF helicopter. The efforts to airlift the rhinoceros failed on Monday because of bad weather. Top ranked forest and district administration officials are camping in the Rani Chapori area to guard the animal from poachers. The rhino was spotted by local people at Rani Chapori of Sualkuchi near here in Kamrup Rural district and was suspected to have strayed from the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary near Guwahati.For...

Curfew reimposed in Haflong town

Fresh incidents of violence gripped Dima Hasao distirct after the district administration relaxed curfew in Haflong on Monday.Supporters of the North Cachar Hills Indigenous Poples Forum turned violent where policemen were attacked in Haflong town. Bandh supporters pelted stones at security forces at Mahadev Tilla and Harangajao. Policemen on duty were forced to fire rubber bullets to disperse the mob.Some NCIPF activists came out into the streets in Haflong during the curfew relaxation period and set on fire a bike at Kalibari Road. This is apart from an incident where an autorickshaw was damaged at Gunjung area. Indefinite curfew was reimposed in the hills town following the incident.

Lightening in Goalpara: 3 killed

Three persons were killed by lightning and two others seriously injured in Goalpara district on Monday.Two of them hail from a family when the five persons were inside a house at Nolanga Reserve when they were struck by ligtning killing a man and his son and a neighbour on the spot. Three persons were killed by lightning in Dhubri district and two girls in Golaghat district on Sunday.

Tension along Assam-Mizo border

Tension is simmering along Assam-Mizoram interstate border when a Barak Valley-based NGOs launched a fresh indefinite blockade on NH-54.The blockade on the road connecting Mizoram was launched at 6 in the morning demanding that non-tribal workers from Cachar district be allowed to enter Mizoram's IOC Veng locality of Vairengte without inner line permits.The All Barak Youth Students' Association demanded that the governments of both the states find a solution to Assam-Mizoram boundary disputes and implored the Assam government to destroy the 'boundary pillars' erected by Mizo NGOs.

Nagaon focuses on industrial labourer

A UGC sponsored national seminar on the Problems of Industrial Labourers in Assam was held in ADP College, Nagaon on September 28-29. The seminar was inaugurated on Sep 28 by Dr Narayan Ch Barman, President of Governing Body by lighting lamp. Dr Sarifuddin Ahmed, Principal of ADP College welcomed the guests and scholars. Dr Sanjib Kumar Borkakoti, Working President of the Seminar Organizing Committee dedicated the seminar to the hallowed memory of Anandaram Dhekial Phookan who was the pioneer of economic analysis in Assamese literature.Prof Nirankar Srivastav, Dean, School of Social Science, North Eastern Hills University presented the key note address. He highlighted the problems of...

ULFA behind ONGC plant inferno!

The ravaging inferno at an ONGC-owned plants in Titabor on Friday mires in controversy. ONGC authorities blamed technical fault resulting in the fire that left reduced properties worth crores of rupees to ashes. But ULFA’s anti-talk claimed to have blown up the plant alleging that the attack would continue. In an e-mail statement, the outfit claimed to have blown up the plants. Notably, on several occasion earlier ULFA owned up responsibilities.

6 UPDFmen held near Tinsukia

Security forces arrested six cadre of United Peoples Democratic Front in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday. They were arrested from Changlang district bordering Tinsukia during an anti insurgency operation. Police interrogation is going on in Tinsukia.

ULFA man dead in Tinsukia encounter

An ULFA militant was killed and two policeman have been seriously injured at an encounter in Tinsukia district on Saturday. The encounter took place at Bordumgsa when ULFA militants faced security forces on patrolling duty resulting in a fierce firing in the evening. ULFA militants lobbed a grenade in which one policeman was injured and he was admitted to Assam Medical College Hospital at Dibrugarh. Then the militants managed to escape.

Pritam killing: NHRC registers fresh case

National Human Rights Commission has registered one more case in connection with the murder of PhD scholar from Assam Pritam Bhattacharjee at Naugachia railway station in Bihar. The case was registered after Silchar district bar association appealed to NHRC to ensure that the culprits are brought to book. The NHRC has registered the suit, its assistant registrar (legal cell) informed the bar association secretary Champak Dutta. Bhattacharjee, who hails from Silchar had boarded the Assam-Avadh Express from Guwahati on July 8 and went missing from Naugachia station the next day.