As many as 17 airports have been made operational in the northeastern region, Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) G Kishan Reddy said in Lok Sabha on Monday.
Mr Reddy also said the development of a new greenfield airport at Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, and that of Dibrugarh, Guwahati and Silchar airports in Assam, Imphal airport in Manipur, Barapani airport in Meghalaya and Agartala airport in Tripura are ongoing.
In the northeastern region, 17 airports have been made operational. Recently Donyi Polo airport (erstwhile Holongi Airport) has been inaugurated in Arunachal Pradesh, he said in reply to a question.
Referring to the railway projects, the minister said new projects worth ₹ 19,855 crore have been sanctioned for constructing railway tracks of 864.7 km since 2014-15 till date.
Presently, 20 projects, for new lines as well as doubling, costing ₹ 74,485 crore for 2,011 km length falling fully or partly in the northeastern region are at different stages of planning or approval or execution, he said.
Out of these, 321 km has been commissioned and for which an expenditure of ₹ 26,874 crore has been incurred, he said.
Mr Reddy said several infrastructure development projects have been taken up by the ministries and departments concerned of the central government in the Northeastern Region (NER), which, include road connectivity.
Major ongoing capital road connectivity projects in NER include the four-laneing of Dimapur-Kohima Road (62.9 km) in Nagaland; the four-laneing of Nagaon bypass to Holongi (167 km) in Arunachal Pradesh; alternate two-lane highway from Bagrakote to Pakyong (NH-717A) (152 km) in Sikkim; two laneing of Aizawl – Tuipang NH-54 (351 km) in Mizoram; four-laneing of Imphal–Moreh section of NH-39 (20 km) and two-laneing of 75.4 km in Manipur among others, he said.