NHAI starts work on ₹1,357 cr highway in HP

The Pathankot-Mandi national highway, which connects Pathankot with Leh, Ladakh, and other border areas, has begun construction. NHAI has already purchased land in 40 revenue divisions of Nurpur, including 27 upmohals that will be used for the widening of NH-154. Before obtaining mandatory FCA permission from the apex court, the executing agency completed earth cutting in the forest land for tracing a new alignment of the four-lane project under the Nurpur forest division’s jurisdiction from Bodh to Bherkhud in Nurpur. The Pathankot-Mandi four-lane project is strategically important, but it has yet to be started, even in the package one from Kandwal to Sihuni in the Nurpur section, five years after the Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari laid the foundation stone in Kangra. Pathankot and Mandi will be separated by only 171 kilometres as a result of the project. The NHAI has awarded construction work on the package first from Kandwal to Sehuni (from Kandwal to Mao and Mao to Sihuni) to two construction companies through global bids for a total investment of Rs 1,357 crore.