INDIAN INFRASTRUCTURE TO BE UPGRADED
India's central government has approved a proposal to upgrade 5000km of existing highway at a cost of US$1.63 billion. Contracts for the work are expected to be awarded within the next few months. At the same time the New Delhi municipality unfolded plans to improve the local infrastructure, among others to better facilitate the growing public transport.
The majority of the work within India, which will improve 4000km of existing single or dual-carriageways, will be undertaken on a BOT basis, with the contractor recovering costs through tolls. A further 1000km of road will be improved through the annuity method. All roads will eventually have two lanes incorporating paved shoulders.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) plans to upgrade and strengthen the city's major roads, with an investment of Rs 6.8 crore (Rs 680,000,000 rupees or US$16million) in preparation for hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games. It has created a special account for urban and rural roads and has made budget provision of Rs 750,000,000 ($17.5 million) and Rs 250,000,000 ($5.8 million) respectively, MCD standing committee chairman Vijender Gupta said. Work on these projects has been initiated, he added. According to Gupta, improvement and strengthening of important city roads will be done in a phased manner. Prominent among them is improving and strengthening of Indira Gandhi National Open University Road from Mehrauli, Badarpur Road crossing to Maidan Gari Village which will cost Rs 3.67 crore ($8.6 million) and be completed within nine months, he said.
Earlier this year the Delhi government decided to continue with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor in the capital, but put on hold the expansion of the controversial transport system because of the traffic chaos the inauguration of the first stretch resulted in.
In view of the intense criticism of this 5.8-km Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand BRT line in South Delhi, the first of the six proposed for the capital, the chief minister had called a meeting of the various stakeholders to review its performance and take a decision on whether to continue with it or scrap it. Dikshit said, while the feedback was that the corridor aiming at segregating different kinds of vehicles into separate lanes was satisfactory with regard to buses, pedestrians and cyclists, motorists were facing problems. In all, six BRT corridors have been planned for the capital.
The trans-vision of the city of Ahmedabad captioned as ‘Accessible Ahmedabad’ is becoming a reality with the sanction of Ahmedabad Phase-II BRT system (30.5 Km at a cost Rs. 488 crores)today, by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. Today, Mr. I.P Gautam Municipal Commissioner Ahmedabad and his team presented the details of the project before the Central Sanctioning Committee of JnNURM Govt of India