Bihar CM Nitish Kumar approves alignment of 4 major highway projects including Muzaffarpur ring-road

PATNA: Bihar will soon have two Greenfield four-lane national highways from Mokama to Munger and Buxar to Varanasi via Chausa. A 40-km long ring-road around Muzaffarpur town would also be constructed to ease the traffic congestion.
CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday approved alignments of four major highway projects after reviewing a presentation made by the road construction department’s (RCD) additional chief secretary Amrit Lal Meena. The presentation was made at ‘Sankalp’ hall of the CM residence here.
The projects include construction of a Greenfield four-lane highway from Mokama to Munger, construction of Greenfield four-lane highway from Buxar to Varanasi via Chausa, four-laning of the existing Barauni-Muzaffarpur national highway including construction of a 40-KM long ring road around Muzaffarpur town and the four-laning of Buxar- Haidariya (Ghazipur, UP) road to provide direct connectivity UP’s Purvanchal Expressway.
“A sum of around Rs 10,000 crore would be spent on the construction of the four projects,” Meena told TOI on Wednesday.
He said as the alignments of these four projects had been approved by the CM, the department would now finalize their detailed project reports (DRPs).
Meena said the Mokama-Munger Greenfield highway would be 92 Km long. This also includes a 20 KM long link road from Sarmera to Manoharpur. The Greenfield highway would cross through Manoharpur and south of Lakhisarai town.
Meena further said the required land for the Mokama-Munger four-lane highway was available, whereas the government would start land acquisition exercises for the other three projects.
Giving details about the Muzaffarpur ring-road project, Meena said all national highways entering into Muzaffarpur town would now be linked through the proposed ring-road.
“The Muzaffarpur-Barauni highway would be linked to the Muzaffarpur-Hajipur highway through a 5 KM long bypass road. Similarly, the Muzaffarpur-Barauni highway would be linked to the Muzaffarpur-Darbhanga east-west corridor through an 11 KM long bypass road. The Muzaffarpur bypass road will be linked to the east-west corridor by a 1.6 KM long road,” Meena said.
At the meeting, Nitish also gave his nod on the RCD’s proposal to send a recommendation to the Union government for inclusion of the proposed construction of seven new four-lane highways under the Bharatmala- phase 2.
The proposed new highways projects include the four-laning of 552 KM long Indo-Nepal border road ( This road is currently being constructed as two-lane road), Patna-Kolkata Expressway, Buxar-Arwal-Jehanabad-Biharsharif highways (the Buxar to Arwal part of this road will be a Greenfield project), Dalsinghsarai- Simri Bakhtiyarpur highway, Dighwara-Masrakh-Piprakothi-Motihari –Raxaul highway, Sultanganj-Deoghar highway and Masrakh-Muzaffarpur highway.
After reviewing the new road projects, Nitish said the highway projects which have been prepared for further strengthening of the road infrastructures in Bihar, were superior.
The CM further asked the RCD officials to ensure proper maintenance of existing roads while constructing the new highways and four-lane roads. State’s RCD minister Nitin Navin, chief secretary Tripurari Sharan and development commissioner Amir Subhani also were present at the meeting.