BHUBANESWAR: Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha, has urged Nitin Gadkari, the union minister for roads and highways, for personal involvement in order to expedite the completion of the Cuttack-Angul-Sambalpur stretch of NH-55.
The Chief Minister stated in a letter to Gadkari that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been rehabilitating and upgrading the Cuttack-Sambalpur national highway (0.400 km to 265 km) to a four-lane carriageway since 2017.
The fact that upgrade work hasn't been finished even after more than five years is really concerning, he said.
Millions of people in Western Odisha rely on the Cuttack-Sambalpur portion of NH-55, saud Patnaik, who also claimed that the road's poor condition and haphazard construction activities frequently result in fatal accidents. As many as 399 incidents have occurred in the past two years, resulting in 196 fatalities, Patnaik noted.
The excessive delay in finishing the road work has caused widespread agitation and discontentment. He said that the state administration had previously expressed its concern on this issue to the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.
Although the current project's development is regularly assessed with the NHAI regional officials, he continued, no satisfying results are yet apparent.
The Chief minster urged Gadkari to intervene in the matter for early completion of the project which will go a long way in redressing the pending demand of the people of the state.
Earlier on this proejct, Minster Dharmendra Pradhan had also urged Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari to expedite the construction work on the prominent highway projects passing through Odisha including the coastal highway from Rameshwar to Digha, capital region ring road, Paradip-Barbil economic corridor and NH-55 from Cuttack to Sambalpur via Angul.
