Dimapur NH29 improvement project: Nearly INR 370 cr. sanctioned

57 business establishments, private properties to be affected

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Sep. 21: Details concerning the much-delayed ‘improvement of city portion of Dimapur city project’ along the National Highway 29 (NH29) have emerged with documents obtained by Eastern Mirror revealing that nearly INR 370 crore has been sanctioned for the project and dozens of both public and private properties along the stretch of road to be affected.

According to the information obtained by Eastern Mirror, a total of INR 369.96 crore has been sanctioned for the project and INR 1.05 crore has already been invested. As many as 57 areas along the road from Chumukedima to Zion Hospital junction will be affected due to expansion work. Spaces in front of several business establishments and shops along this stretch of road will be demarcated by a minimum of 1 meter to a maximum of 6 meter.

The length of the road under ‘improvement of city portion of Dimapur city project’ measures 17.3 km. The first 2.9 km of the road starting from the New Field Check gate to the Zion Hospital junction would be a two-lane road; from there up to Chumukedima would be a four-lane road of 12.9 km, and the last 1.5 km till Chathe Bridge would again be two-lane. The proposed thickness of the crust of the road is 580 mm.

TK Engineering Consortium Private Limited based in Arunachal Pradesh is taking up the project and the engineers from the Public Works department (PWD) national highway (NH) of Kohima division, who are in involved in the project, are Executive Engineer Vikishe Yepthomi, sub-divisional engineer Kito Anche; junior engineer Pangernuksung Jamir, and junior engineer Jepdakyangba.
The tentative duration and phase for the road to complete is 18 months—March 22 2018 to September 21 2019.

In a telephonic conversation with this newspaper, one of the engineers, Kito Anche, said the project has been undertaken under the supervision of the engineers of Chaitanya Projects Consultancy Pvt. Ltd and that the width of the four-lane road would be 23 meters to a minimum of 21.5. He said that the project is smoothly functioning with no problems from landowners, criminal activities, or any other untoward situation.

The ‘improvement of city portion of Dimapur city project’ started last month (reported by Eastern Mirror dated August 23, 2018), about seven months after former chief minister TR Zeliang had inaugurated the project as part of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme on Jan. 17 2018. He had said that the minister for Road Transport and Highways had sanctioned INR 509.08 cr. out of which INR 279.39 cr. was earmarked for the stretch of road from New Field Check Gate to the Chathe Bridge, contradicting the amount mentioned in the documents obtained from the office of the PWD (NH) by this newspaper.