The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, approved construction of 6.93 km long 4-lane bridge at Phulaut in Bihar. The CCEA also cleared the rehabilitation and up-gradation of existing Birpur- Bihpur section of National Highway-106 from Km 106 to Km 136 to ‘2 lane with Paved Shoulder’ in Bihar at a capital cost of Rs 1478.40 crore. Both the projects will be constructed in three years and are likely to be completed by June, 2022.
CCEA also gave a go ahead to Rehabilitation and up-gradation of Birpur -Bihpur Section of National Highway in Bihar. The new bridge will bring down the travelling distance between Phulaut to Bihpur from 72 km to 12 km and generate direct employment of about 2.19 lakh man-days during construction.
At present there is a 10 km long missing link between Phulaut and Bihpur on NH-106 and falling in the catchment area of Kosi River. As a result, the traffic from Phulaut to Bihpur requires to take a detour of approximate 72 km. On construction of the new 4-Lane Bridge across river Kosi under this project, distance between Phulaut and Bihpur will be reduced to 12 km.
The construction of this new Bridge will fill the existing 30 km long gap between Udakishanganj and Bihpur of National Highway Number 106 in Bihar, which will provide through connectivity between Nepal/ North Bihar/ East-West Corridor (passing through NH- 57) and South Bihar/ Jharkhand/ Golden Quadrilateral (passing through NH -2), besides full utilization of National Highway Number-31.
At present, the existing NH is having single/ intermediate lane configuration with poor road geometry, therefore, average speed on the highway is below 20 km /hour. With the upgradation of highway to 2-lane with paved shoulder configuration and construction of bridge on the missing link, the travel speed would increase to the design speed of about 100 km/ hour.
