AGARTALA, June 28 (TIWN): Whereas Tripura NH-44 has gone its worst shape after PWD took charge of it, the PWD Minister has suddenly woken up from a deep sleep and sent letter to Nitin Gadkari.

However, PWD minister might have observed Assam’s faster development with central’s help and cooperation thus he has also jumped over the issue now.

It’s worthy to mention here that before the budget session, Nitin Gadkari said that “National Highways at Northeast was left as Orphans till day, so now the work has been given upon NHIDC”. NHIDCL is entrusted with 109 projects in 13 states including Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim and West Bengal. 

However Tripura PWD Minister has sent a letter to the Union Ministry for Transport Nitin Gadkari to find out a permanent solution of it.

 In last week following the ongoing crisis of fuel and food due to National Highway’s pathetic condition Tripura Govt. officials contacted with the Engineers and High Level Officials at Assam and but Assam Govt. further asked the Tripura Govt. for joint initiative in NH-44 renovation.

 Tripura and Assam Govt. officials are visiting Lowairpoa to Churaibari road, but the condition is so much worst there that it will take some time to renovate.

Tripura Ministers however were silent till day and was waiting for central’s response but finally Badal Choudhury felt it’s important to send a letter to the Union Ministry and to request him for  a solution.

It’s worthy to mention here that the state govt. took over the maintenance in September 2013 from the central govt i.e. BRO (Border roads organization). But the main goal of govt. was pocketing the central funds, and exactly from that time NH-44 started to become worse and worse.

According to the sources The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had given an approval of Rs. 15 crore for the maintenance and the development of the NH-44, connecting Churaibari with Sabroom via Agartala. Then to de-centralize the issue and to grab the money, CM Manik Sarkar turned the issue by demanding another National Highway from Modi-govt. and for the 4 lane work of NH-44 but since then the issue of the main NH-44 has been fully sidelined by the state govt.