Border Roads Organisation set to augment frontier infra through 2k projects

SRINAGAR: Braving serious challenges in hard terrains, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is confident of bringing about a marked difference in road infrastructure along India's frontiers in the next two years.

"By 2014, you will see a marked difference across the borders. Combining both big and small schemes, we are working on more than 2,000 road projects (along the borders)," Director General, Border Road Organisation (BRO) Lt General S Ravi Shankar told PTI.

These highways schemes are being executed through BRO's 18 projects including Beacon, Arunank, Brahmank and Dantak for which it has a budgetary provision of about Rs 5,000 crore for projects a year, Lt Gen Shankar said.

Elaborating on existing projects, he said while the BRO will construct a 6.5 km tunnel at Z-Morh between Gagangir and Sonamarg on NH-1 in Srinagar, it is set to execute another 13 km tunnel at Zojila to provide all-weather connectivity from Srinagar to Leh, which remains cut-off for six to seven months during winter.

Both the tunnels would be built at a total cost of Rs 8,217 crore.

About Z-Morh tunnel, foundation stone of which was laid by Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi on Friday, the BRO chief said it took more than a year to prepare its feasibility study.

"It will be completed ahead of schedule" despite the fact that workers in the extreme conditions can work only for four to five months as the area remains buried under snow for six months, he said.

As per the schedule, the project is expected to be completed by August 2018.