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The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared the construction of a 22-km road to link Jharkhand and Bihar, which will include a four-lane bridge over the Ganga river.
The project, which will connect Sahibganj bypass in Jharkhand to Manihari bypass in Bihar, will cost Rs.2,000 crore, including the cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities.
The project will be built under the newly introduced hybrid annuity mode with a concession period of 19 years. The bridge over Ganga will help save time as currently vehicles use the Vikramshila bridge at Bhagalpur, taking a longer route.
The project, expected to be completed in approximately 89,000 man days, will generate employment for local labourers, aiding the economy of the backward regions of these states. It will also boost trade and business in Uttar Pradesh, said Nitin Gadkari, minister of road transport and highways and shipping told reporters in a press briefing on Thursday.
The road ministry has also acquired land in Sahibganj to build a multi-modal hub on Ganga consisting of an integrated infrastructure between the roads, railways and waterways with the aim of bringing down logistics cost by 6% from 18%. This would support large scale exports from Sahibganj to places in West Bengal, North East and Bangladesh while also having the potential to get extended to Myanmar.
“By 2018, river Ganga would see 2 crore tonnes of goods being moved around from the current 20 lakh tonnes. A few of Mumbai’s industrial houses have also approached me saying that they will ready their godowns in Sahibganj to send their goods to Assam and other parts of north east region through water,” Gadkari said.
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