New Delhi, May 14: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has set the target to complete the Jammu-Akhnoor four-lane road project by March 2025. The project was sanctioned by the government in 2015. However, the construction work has gained pace from 2021 to 2023. The Jammu-Akhnoor highway is a stretch of National Highway 144-A. It connects the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch with Jammu. It is also a very important defence road.
This four-laning project is being executed by the National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) at an estimated cost of Rs 1,345 crores.
The road project will be completed in different phases. Recently, the road stretch up to 4.4 km under Phase-1 has been completed.The project has been divided into four packages –
(a) Package-I:
Under Package-1, the work on a 0.8 km long stretch from Bhagwati Nagar Chowk (4th Tawi Bridge) to Canal Head in Jammu city is under progress.
(b) Package-II:
Under Package – II, the flyover has been fully functional.
(c) Package-III:
Under Package – III, the work on a 20-kilometre-long stretch is also underway. So far, 72 percent of construction work has been completed.
Reasons of delay in completion of Jammu-Akhnoor road widening project:
The construction of a road between Jammu to Akhnoor has been assigned in 2018 but got started in 2019. The project was supposed to be completed by December-end but due to several reasons, the project has been delayed. The reasons are the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and lack of materials and land acquisition due to Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
