On September 21, 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the Foundation Stone for Nine Highway Projects worth Rs 14, 528 Crores in Bihar through video conference. The project includes making six-lane highways, and three bridges on rivers.He also laid foundation of ‘Har Gaon Optical Fibre Cable’ for Internet Services to connect all villages of Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad participated in the virtual meeting.
Highway Projects:
i.The total road length of the road projects is 350 kms. The projects worth Rs 14, 528 Crores on completion will improve Bihar’s connectivity with Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
ii.Upon successful completion of the projects, all the rivers in Bihar would have bridges which will conform to the 21st century specifications. All major national highways would be widened and strengthened.
iii.Under the Prime Ministers Package announced in 2015, over 3000 Kms of National Highway were proposed. In addition, under the Bharatmala Project, a six and a half kilometer national highway is being constructed.
- Now in Bihar, there are 5 projects underway to connect East and West Bihar with four lanes and 6 projects underway to connect North India with South India.
“Har Gaon Optical Fibre Cable” Project:
i.Prime Minister inaugurated the “Har Gaon Optical Fibre Cable” project ,under this about six lakh villages would be provided internet services through optical fibre cable in 1,000 days. This includes all 45,945 villages in Bihar. It will be executed by the Department of Telecom, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and Common Service Centres (CSC).
ii.It will be executed in 180 days and will be completed by March 31, 2021, at an approximate cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
iii.The project also includes implementation of one Wi-Fi and five fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections for one year, free of cost to identified government institutions, primary schools, Anganwadi centres, ASHA workers, and Jeevika Didi, etc., and one Wi-Fi at a public place in every village of Bihar.
iv.The project will enable digital services like e-Education, e-Agriculture, Tele-Medicine, Tele-law to be easily available for the common citizens of Bihar.
v.In the next 1000 days, around one lakh villages are set to be connected through Optical Fibre under this project.
Special Package in 2015:
i.PM declared a special package for infrastructure development of Bihar in 2015. Which included 75 projects worth Rs 54,700 crore.
ii.13 projects have been completed, works are progressing in 38, while others are in the Detail Project Report/Bidding/Sanction stage.
iii.Under the package, the total number of bridges over Ganga will increase to 17, with a lane capacity of 62.
iv.On an average, there would be a bridge over rivers every 25 kms in the state.
Other Participants in Virtual conference :-
Shri Giriraj Singh, Bihar Governor Shri Fagu Singh, Deputy Chief Minister Shri Sushil Kumar Modi, Union MoSs Shri R K Singh, Gen (Dr) V K Singh (Retd), Shri Ashwini Kumar Chaube, Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Ministers from the State, several MPs, MLAs and senior officers from the Centre and the State.
Recent Related News:
i.On August 28, 2020 Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad laid foundation stone of the digital training and skilling center of the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur in Bihar which will be developed by the Ministry at a cost of Rs 9.17 crore.
ii.On July 11, 2020 Institute for Human Development (IHD), an Indian non-profit institution conferred with ‘Development Marketplace Award 2020: Innovations to Address Gender-Based Violence’ from World Bank Group and Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) for the project alcohol, intimate partner violence and household economy: an assessment of liquor ban in Bihar.
About Bihar:
Rivers – Ganga, Ghaghra, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla, Mahanada, Kosi, Sone, Phalgu and Karmanasa.
UNESCO Heritage Sites – Mahabodhi Temple Complex, Nalanda Mahavihara, Kushinagar.
