GANDHINAGAR, OCT 8: The 32-km-long Vadodara-Halol four-lane road project, the first of its kind in the country to be developed by the private sector, is ready. The Rs 120-crore highway, is expected to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel next week.Principal Secretary (Roads and Buildings) H.P. Jamdar told The Indian Express that the government had decided to fix a toll tax of Rs 60 for trucks, Rs 25 for cars, Rs 10 for three-wheelers and Rs 5 for two-wheelers using the road.The highway has been built by the Mumbai-based Infrastructure Lease Finance and Services Limited. The company will run the project for 30 years, before transferring it to the state government.Meanwhile, a multi-crore World Bank-aided Gujarat State Highway Project will be launched at a workshop in Ahmedabad on Monday. It will be attended by members of the bank's project team, senior officers of the Roads and Buildings Department and various consultants and construction agencies.The workshop will discuss implementation of the Rs 2,400-crore project. The highway will be completed within four years. The WB has sanctioned a Rs 1,715-crore loan. The remaining Rs 685 crore will be arranged by the state government.Under the project, around 900 km of the existing state highways would be upgraded to increase their capacity to carry traffic. Another 900 km of roads across the state will be coated with asphalt.Jamdar said work on the modernisation of the Ahmedabad-Rajkot national highway was in full swing, while work on the 90-km stretch between Bagodara and Rajkot is almost over. Besides, work on the 56-km-long road between Samkhiyadi and Gandhidham and on the 54-km-long Ahmedabad-Mehsana road in north Gujarat is in progress. The 101-km-long Bagodara-Tarapur-Vasad project worth Rs 85 crore is being implemented with the help of HUDCO.Jamdar said the government had evolved an elaborate Rs 19,500-crore action plan to develop roads as part of the Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board's ``Vision 2010'' scheme . He said 5,256 km of road length would be developed under the plan with private participation and financial assistance from the World Bank, NABARD, HUDCO, ADB and other agencies.The plan includes construction of overbridges on 11 roads, conversion of 11 national highways into four-lane tracks, a World Bank-aided project to strengthen 14 major roads (841 km), development of 14 state highways (3,299km) and strengthening of rural roads (1,205 km) with assistance from NABARD.
