NHAI floats tenders for coastal highway, capital ring road projects

Bhubaneswar: Construction of two key infrastructure projects in the state — coastal highway and capital region ring road — is expected to start soon as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has initiated the tender process.
For the ambitious coastal highway project, the NHAI has floated tender under two packages — from Rameswar to Puri (47 km) under package-1 and from Puri to Kakatpur (45 km) under package-II.
The coastal highway will be developed as a four-lane road. While the Rameswar-Puri stretch will be developed at an investment of Rs 1,436 crore, around Rs 1,297 crore will be the estimated cost for construction of the Puri-Kakatpur stretch.
The NHAI has also floated tender for construction of the six-lane capital region ring road (CRRR) from Gobindpur near Kuspangi on NH-42 to Tangi near Manguli on NH-16.
“After award of the tenders, the process of financial closure will start. In between, the NHAI will also initiate the process of obtaining forest and environmental clearances for these projects following which the construction will start. Also, it will move the state government to expedite the land acquisition process for these key infrastructure projects, said a senior NHAI official.
As the coastal highway and CRRR projects have huge significance in terms of accelerating the socio-economic growth of the state, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been continuously following their progress. In April, he met his cabinet colleague and Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari to push for early implementation of these projects.
Though the coastal highway was initially proposed to connect Gopalpur in Ganjam to Digha in West Bengal, the alignment (proposed path) has now been changed in view of environmental concerns. The project would now start from NH-16 near Tangi in Khurda district and will be developed in two stretches — Tangi-Ratanpur and Ratanpur-Digha — at an investment of over Rs 7,000 crore.
The length of the proposed Tangi-Ratanpur stretch is approximately 177 km, which will pass through areas like Puri, Konark, Astarang, Naugaon, Paradip port and will end at Ratanpur, providing connectivity to about 100 villages in Puri, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapada districts.