Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari announced on Monday the government's plan to construct a 630-km highway corridor linking Siliguri in West Bengal with Guwahati in Assam and Shillong in Meghalaya. According to reports from The Times of India, the project is estimated to cost ₹61,500 crore and has been described as the "lifeline" of the North East. The corridor will combine new greenfield stretches with upgradation of existing highways to provide seamless connectivity across the entire route. The government expects the projects to reduce travel distances and journey times while improving access to the strategically important region around the Siliguri corridor, commonly known as the Chicken's Neck.
The project will be divided into three sections, with the first covering the 400-km stretch between Siliguri and Guwahati involving an investment of ₹30,000 crore. As reported by The Times of India, Gadkari stated that the alignment for this section is currently awaiting approval. The second section will link Jorabat in Guwahati with Barapani in Shillong, where a greenfield road will reduce the existing distance from 100 km to 66 km and cut travel time from around two-and-a-half hours to just one hour. The third leg will be a 165-km greenfield highway connecting Shillong with Silchar, with work orders expected to be issued in November. According to Gadkari, the journey time will be reduced by half, from the current eight hours to only four hours after the project becomes operational.
According to The Times of India, the road transport ministry has initiated an expressway connectivity project between Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and Siliguri. Once these projects are complete, high-speed highway connectivity will be established between Uttar Pradesh and the North East. Gadkari also revealed that 265 projects spanning around 4,700 km are currently being undertaken in Assam with an estimated cost of nearly ₹2 lakh crore, while another 31 projects covering approximately 1,470 km have been planned at an estimated cost of ₹92,000 crore. The Centre has also approved a ₹8,970.20 crore project to build a 135.87-km four-lane, access-controlled corridor between Baihata Chariali near Guwahati and Tezpur in Assam, which will be developed under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) toll model.
As reported by The Times of India, a cumulative ₹6.11 lakh crore was spent on development in the North Eastern Region (NER) between 2014-15 and 2024-25, against a cumulative allocation of ₹6.02 lakh crore. The National Highway network in the North Eastern Region has expanded considerably, with the total length increasing from 10,905 km in 2014 to 16,207 km as of March 31, 2025. Over the past decade, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) led to the construction of 46,296 km of rural roads across the NER, involving expenditure of ₹47,279 crore. The proposed Siliguri-Guwahati-Shillong corridor will add to these infrastructure plans as part of the larger effort to improve road access across the North East and reduce journey times between key locations.
