Assam govt focus on road and communication infrastructure development : Tarun Gogoi

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday said that the State Government’s intensified focus on road and communication infrastructure development stimulated rural development in the State.

In a statement, Gogoi said that, since 2001 the present state government lined up several infrastructure projects for the improvement of rural communication and the successful implementation of those projects led to smooth and seamless rural communication in the state.

“When the present government took the reign in 2001, the State PWD had 4367 kilometers all weather concrete roads in Assam which consisted of 12 per cent of the PWD roads. However, the intensive focus of the present Government for the creation of rural communication infrastructure has led to laying of 25,189 kilometers all weather concrete roads which covers 55 per cent of the PWD roads,” Gogoi said.

Gogoi said that, at present concretization of five thousand kilometres of roads is going on in the state for smooth surface road communication.

The Assam CM also said that, in 2001, the state had only 309 concrete bridges which covered only 5 per cent of the total bridges. However, with the buoyant emphasis of the present dispensation, the Government has constructed 3813 concrete bridges since 2001 till date of which 2802 were converted from wooden to concrete and 1011 are new construction.

“At present 1285 bridges are under construction of which 1183 are being converted into RCC Bridges and 102 are new construction,” Gogoi said in the statement.

Gogoi further said though there are bamboo bridges in the State and these are not under PWD Department of Assam government.

However, the State Government is all set to take action to convert these bamboo bridges into concrete bridges in phased manner, Gogoi added.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)