AGARTALA, August 9 (TIWN): The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is likely to sanction Rs. 15 crores for major maintenance on a 50 Km segment of the Agartala-Churaibari segment of the National Highway 44 soon, Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department (PWD) Sunil Bhowmik said. A team comprising of Additional Chief Engineer Sushobhan Bhattacharya and Sushanta Dutta camped at New Delhi for a few days starting July 21 to take up funding issues with officials of the MoRTH. The officials said after returning from Delhi that the initial estimates for maintenance funding on a 50 Km segment from Agartala submitted during their stay at Delhi didn’t match the MoRTH proforma.

“We took over the NH 44 work on 104 Km from the BRO authorities barely few months back. Our estimates were not exactly according to their requirements. We will be resubmitting it by August 11”, Bhowmik said. He said that sources in the ministry assured a fund of Rs. 15 crores for the purpose.

He added that the PWD authorities started monsoon maintenance including filling up of potholes and repairing small patches of National Highway having smallscale ruptures since May this year.

“We have started emergency repair work on the Agartala-Churaibari segment of the NH 44. However, we haven’t started work on the Agartala-Udaipur route yet”, the PWD Engineer-in-Chief said. A separate source inside the Public Works Department (PWD) today said that the Border Roads Organization (BRO) has been fully irresponsible in starting their maintenance works along the NH 44 despite receipt of sufficient funds months back.

The first installment of Rs. 4 crore for maintenance along the Agartala-Sabroom route arrived to the local BRO authorities around 1.5 months back. Works haven’t been started yet. Funds were released to BRO for maintenance along a 94 Km patch in the Agartala-Churaibari segment of NH 44 as well.

There is no trace of work completed in the segment, the source said. NHAI and MoRTH authorities have denied to approve any further funds for special repair on the segment since the process of awarding work order through tender for double laning in the segment is currently under progress, the source informed.