ROURKELA: The demand to help set up a strategic road network in the industrial and mining district of Sundargarh by expediting the establishment of a National Highway (NH) in the west and sanctioning a spar road in the north has been growing over the years.
The two roads are reportedly envisaged to strengthen the road network with adjacent Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh which acting with other available road networks would create an effective transport network to further boost economic and industrial activities.
On the initiative of incumbent Sundargarh MP of BJP Jual Oram, the NHAI in 2018 had given in-principle approval for declaring the Karamdihi-Subdega-Balishankara section in Sundargarh as a new NH to start from Karamdihi at the junction of State Highway (SH) 10 or Biju Expressway. It is envisaged to connect the under-developed Raipur-Dhanbad economic corridor under NH-43 near Ludang and NH-49 at Jharsuguda. The proposed NH is lingering over technical reasons.
A reliable source said now that efforts are underway for setting up the NH-143H, a secondary route of NH-43, senior BJP leader and aide of Jual, Ramesh Agarwal has mooted the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to connect the existing NH 143 from Talsara to the upcoming NH-143H anywhere near Raiboga with a spar road.
This Greenfield NH-143H project envisages starting from Litibera in the Kutra block of Sundargarh and after traversing 29 km through the Amco-Simco tourism site near Birmitrapur would travel towards Jharkhand to end near Ranchi.
Agarwal said the land acquisition is delaying the progress, adding the existing NH-143 from Talsara up to 35 km in Jharkhand is two-lane, while the upcoming NH-143H would be four-lane to serve as an economic freight corridor. He said the newly-declared NH-320 meets the NH-143 at Panposh of Rourkela to set up the shortest road link to Jharkhand’s Tatanagar, adding the existing Rourkela-Sambalpur SH-10 is already connected to the NH-143 at Vedvyas of Rourkela.
Birmitrapur MLA Shankar Oram said the upcoming NH-143H is planned through his constituency and the existing NH-143 already running through the Birmitrapur assembly constituency should have a meeting point with a spar road in his constituency for larger public benefits.