The Union government is trying to tie up Japanese funds for road projects in the North-East that had difficulty in attracting private sector investment in the past, sources in the government said.

The Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Sarvey Sathyanarayana has recently said in the Lok Sabha that there are only four road projects for which formal Environment Clearance are awaited.

About 14,000 km length of National Highways has been converted into four lanes during the last ten years i.e. 2004 to 2012 by National Highways Authority of India, Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Tushar A Chaudhary stated in the Rajya Sabha recently.

In Haryana, the construction of underpass at Kharki Daula Chowk on National Highway-8 (NH-8) was agreed in-principle on cost sharing formula with Govt. of Haryana, said the Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Tushar A. Chaudhary in a reply to a question in Rajya Sabha recently.

The Union government has said that a total of 1,38258 persons have been killed in road accidents in the country during 2012. In 2011, 1,42,485 persons were killed, the government has said.

Under Phase A and the Arunachal package of the Special Accelerated Road Development Project-North East (SARDP-NE), the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has approved construction of 6,418 km of road, said the Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Sarvey Sathyanarayana.

On a cost-sharing basis between the Kerala and the Union governments, work on the Kollam and Alappuzha bypass of the NH 66 will be taken up on on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode. Tenders for the work were finalised by the National Highway wing of the Public Works Department (PWD).

The stretch of National Highways (NH-1) between Shambhu and Amritsar falls in the jurisdiction of two projects namely Panipat to Jalandhar and Jalandhar to Amritsar, said Sarvey Sathyanarayana, Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha on December 9.

Reviewing the progress of infrastructure projects worth Rs 1.6 lakk crore, the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) on September 17 discussed about the ways to overcome hindrances that are delaying them. The projects reviewed were across key infrastructure sectors such as roads, power and petroleum, among others.