NEW DELHI / AGARTALA, Oct 6 (TIWN): Modi Govt’s ‘Act East Policy’ driving rapid infrastructure development across North East region which benefitting Tripura even during lameduck CM Manik Sarkar’s rule. Tripura will get two more National Highways. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) had already sanctioned the amount needed for the Construction of Highways. Accordingly the Public Works Department (PWD) of Tripura invites E-tender which should be based upon the detailed project report. It is estimated that nearly 700 crore should be required for the completion for the work. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will be awarding projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore to construct around 7,000 km of highways in the current fiscal year, said Raghav Chandra, Chairman NHAI, on Wednesday.Speaking at Infrastructure Conclave organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi, he said, "The Government also has made provision for requisite funds to provide arbitration payment, the recent initiatives taken by Government on arbitration norms to revive the construction sector, which will help resolve the arbitration cases sooner and will get the stalled construction projects moving."

"To decongest traffic on this stretch of National Highway 8 latest traffic management will be adopted including automatic vehicle, stop line violation detection and sensors that gauge traffic and communicate with stop lights," Chandra told the conclave.

NHAI has chalked out a pilot project to end everyday traffic snarls on the Delhi-Gurgaon National highway with use of latest digital technologies including the use of Intelligent Traffic Management system (ITMS), Surveillance Cameras and other digital devices.

Among the two proposed National Highways, the 1st one which runs from Kumarghat-Kailasahar-Khowai-Teliamura with al length of 157.70 km is named as 208 National Highway and the 2nd one is named as 108-A to run from Sabroom-Kukitol via Amarpur, Teliamura, Khowai, Kamalpur , Kailasahar and Dharmanagar with a length of 22.90 km. In addition to this, The Central Government had approved the construction of another Highway from Jolabairi- Border Haat, though this highway is not recommended by the State Government.

With the inclusion of this National highway, the length of National Highway is increased to 646 km.

The present status of Roads is:

 It is to be mentioned here that Tripura is one of the states in North Eastern region of the country, and prior to its merger with Union of India, this princely state was having the connectivity with erstwhile East Pakistan, and  now Bangladesh.

And after partition, the State became landlocked and only opportunity left to connect with the mainland was through Assam.