Centre floats tender for six-lane corridor at Goa’s Porvorim

The Union ministry for road transport and highways has floated a tender for the construction of the elevated six-lane highway corridor at Porvorim. The tender states that the work will be worth Rs 474.6 crore and have to be completed within 24 months.Officials said that all encroachments on the acquired land to construct the highway have been cleared and the remaining ones will be removed soon. The land is clear for construction to begin as soon as the work order is issued, said the official.The project on NH-66 is being funded by the Union ministry, which has sanctioned Rs 641.4 crore for its construction and its approaches. NH construction may create traffic nightmare at Porvorim. The elevated road is expected to be 5.2km-long and the approaches will start at Sangolda junction at one end and the Neo-Majestic hotel at the other.In the highway improvement works taken up in Goa from Patradevi to Bambolim, the Porvorim stretch is the last one yet to be widened. A case over land acquisition for the six-lane highway on stilts at Porvorim was pen ding before the Supreme Court, due to which expansion on only this stretch could not take place, leading to a bottleneck for traffic at present.The Porvorim elevated highway project is expected to resolve the traffic congestion along this section of NH 66 leading up to Panaji, and also improve accessibility to the Mopa airport.