Gandhi Maidan spruced up for road congress

PATNA: A kind of township, named Shershah Nagar, has been set up at the sprawling Gandhi Maidan here to host the five-day-long 70th Indian Road
Congress (IRC) beginning Friday. Around 2,000 deelgates from across the country and some from abroad are expected to participate in the event and good arrangments are being made for their stay. Chief minister Nitish Kumar will inaugurate it on Saturday at the huge pandal named as Ashoka Hall where chairs for 2,500 people have been lined up. The spacious dias will also serve as stage for the cultural programmes where reputed artists, all belonging to Bihar, will enthral the partcipants every evening. The road construction department (RCD), which will be hosting the event, is leaving no stone unturned to make it a big success and provide all hospitality and facilities to the participants mainly officials, experts and engineers. RCD secretary Pratyaya Amrit said on Thursday, ""It is a big opportunity to showcase Bihar and the participants will be our ambassadors on their return." The state govenment is spending Rs 5.25 crore on holding the historic event which is being held in the platinum jubilee year of the IRC. About 1,500 rooms in different hotels here have been booked and six Volvo buses have been kept ready for the participants if they desire to visit tourist places, sources said. Experts, engineers and officials across the country will deliberate on various aspects of road construction and the IRC will make its recommendations to the Union ministry for shipping, road transport & highways. The RCD officials here are hopeful that the Centre will also take care of the pending proposals of Bihar on roads and bridges. Incidentally, the IRC is being held here at a time when dozens of major proposals are awaiting the Centre's clearance and CM Nitish Kumar met Union minister Kamal Nath in this regard last month. RCD sources said about 38 proposals were lying with the Union ministry for shipping, road transport & highways for clearance or no objection certiifcate (NOC). They include Madhepura bridge, Ghorhat bridge in Bhagalpur and also Mahatma Gandhi Setu connecting North Bihar with state capital. "The Union ministry approved state's proposal for PPP bid for Gandhi Setu on three occasions but it never issued NOC," said an official. The RCD is advocating that the Centre should give work of all the pending road and bridge projects to Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam instead of taking them in its own hands under NHDP- phase III. Most of the major roads are part of this phase and no work has been started on any of them.