India to upgrade Jashore Road into two-lane, development works to finish by 2023

The Indian government has taken an initiative to upgrade its National Highway (NH) 112 – also known as Jashore Road and connecting Kolkata to Bangladesh – into a two-lane highway with state-of-the-art infrastructure. 

The road, that links West Bengal's Barasat to the Petrapole border (Bangladesh-India border), is likely to be redeveloped by the end of 2023, India's Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently said. 

He had said that development works for this highway would begin by the middle of this year and would be completed by the end of 2023, reports newspaper The Sunday Guardian.

The development came after a letter from Shantanu Thakur, a lawmaker from the neighbouring country's Bongaon, was sent to Nitin Gadkari in September, 2021.

In that letter, Thakur urged Gadkari to look into the development of this highway as it caters to the important transport link between Bangladesh and India.

Shantanu Thakur while talking to The Sunday Guardian said that he is happy that the minister has considered his proposal for the development of this important highway and that he is assured that this long pending task will now be completed.

"I am extremely happy that the minister has given his due consideration to the letter I personally met and submitted to him. 

"Once this road gets developed, the adjoining towns in this area would also benefit from it and the people of Bongaon Lok Sabha will immensely benefit from this project," Thakur said.

The 70km highway serves as the most important road between Bangladesh and India, as the Petrapole border is one of the largest land ports in Asia and witnesses a daily business of over Tk113 crore with a yearly movement of about 100,000 trucks between Bangladesh and Kolkata. 

Besides, the Petrapole border provides livelihood to thousands of families residing in the townships on this highway and a yearly trade of more than Tk28,000 crore.

According to The Sunday Guardian report, the single-lane highway remains often overcrowded with trucks which leads to severe traffic congestions regularly and moreover the travelling time between Barasat and Petrapole border (70km) is often more than 3-4 hours due to the poor road conditions and overcrowding.

Meanwhile, the demand to widen the highway has been going on for quite a long and the state government tried to take up this issue in 2018 but the project had to be stopped due following protests by environmentalists.

The Jashore Road is dotted with huge trees on both sides, some as old as 100 years and environmentalists objected to the felling of these trees for development purposes. 

The case had moved to the Calcutta High Court which allowed the felling of these trees, but this order was later challenged at the Indian Supreme Court by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, an NGO.

However, the Ministry of Environment had brought out a notification that to widen or redevelop roads that are less than 100km in length, environmental impact assessment is not required.