60% of work on Imphal-Jiribam road over
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, February 14 2012: After rigorous pressure exerted on the State and Central governments by the people and Information Centre for Hill Areas, Manipur (ICHAM) for improvement of Imphal-Jiribam Road (National Highway 37), Border Road Organisation (BRO) has completed around 60 percent of the road development work so far.

Accompanied by a team of media persons, officials of ICHAM made a visit along the stretch of NH-37 to take a firsthand report on the pace of road development work being carried out under the supervision of BRO on 12th and 13th of this month.

During the course of the inspection visit, the media team witnessed the progress of the road repairing work being carried out at a speedy pace.

The repairing work in the worst affected portion of the National Highway has almost completed with black topping already started.

Previously, it took around 4 days to reach Jiribam from Imphal, but today it is possible to reach in one day.

Presently, three construction companies are working alongside for development of National Highway.

The companies are Shri Gautam Construction Company Limited, Assam; Nidhi Enterprises, Silchar and Anupam Bricks and Concrete Limited.

The Gautam Construction Company Limited is working along a stretch of around 20 kms starting from Makru to Keimai.

The total estimated cost for improvement of this part of the road is said to be around Rs 30 crores.

The company is targeting to cover a length of 12 km during this year and the remaining portion by 2013 .

Ever since the company took up the work two months back, it has completed black topping over a distance of 5 kms, singling done over a stretch of about 7.5 kms and the company has completed 60 percent of the work allotted so far.

The Anupam Bricks and Concrete Limited is working on another stretch of around 14 kms starting from Tollen village to Sibilong.

It started working since January, 2012 .

So far, the granular sub-base (GSB) work has started and the company is targeting to complete the task by next year.

On the other hand, Nidhi Enterprises has started shifting their place in the road portion where BRO was working earlier to black top the area.

Speaking on the sidelines of the inspection visit, Nongthombam Boy, President, ICHAM, said that with the support of the people, the organization has been inspecting the progress of the road construction work along NH 37 (Imphal-Jiribam road) time and again and have submitted reports to the Governor, Chief Minister and Ministry of Defense to press the authority concerned for completion of the work at the earliest possible.

He maintained that the condition of NH 37 is now quite improved in comparing to its earlier condition.

It seems that the private construction companies working along with BRO have done a satisfactory job.

But there are some stretches of the National Highway where the progress of the work is bit slow.

He suggested that the construction work along the road stretch from Barak to Sibilong should be completed before the next monsoons.

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