Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced the approval of a ₹2,077.18 crore project to four-lane the 31.02-km stretch of NH-327. According to reports from The Times of India, the project will link Bagdogra in West Bengal's Darjeeling district with Galgalia in Bihar's Kishanganj. The minister announced this development on Thursday, marking a significant step in the Siliguri Corridor's infrastructure development. As reported by The Times of India, the project involves four-laning of the Bagdogra-Panitanki-Kharibari-Galgalia section of NH-327 in Darjeeling district.
The approved project includes three major bridges, one road over bridge, five elephant underpasses and service roads on both sides of the highway. As reported by The Times of India, these features are designed to enhance the corridor's connectivity and address specific regional challenges. According to the Union minister, these facilities will improve connectivity and ensure safer movement of both people and wildlife along the corridor. The elephant underpasses are specifically aimed at reducing human-animal conflict and vehicle collisions in a region where wild elephant movement is common near the forested belts around Siliguri. The project will also include service roads on both sides of the highway, providing comprehensive infrastructure support for the route.
According to Minister Gadkari, the project will strengthen connectivity along the strategically important Siliguri Corridor and improve access to the Northeast as well as towards Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The highway passes through the strategically important Siliguri Corridor, popularly known as the Chicken's Neck, which provides the principal land link between the northeastern states and the rest of India. As reported by The Times of India, the corridor's location along this vital route makes it strategically significant for regional connectivity and trade facilitation. The upgraded infrastructure is expected to significantly improve transportation accessibility in the region. The Siliguri Corridor narrows to as little as 20-22 km at some points, squeezed between the international borders of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, making it the only land route connecting Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to the rest of India.
The four-laning project is expected to ease congestion in Bagdogra, Naxalbari, Kharibari and Panitanki, all towns that currently see heavy traffic bottlenecks. According to reports from The Times of India, the upgraded highway will enable faster movement of agricultural, horticultural, tea and other local produce from the region to larger markets. The project is also expected to improve access to Bagdogra Airport, a key aviation hub for the region that also has military significance. For the local economy, faster road access is expected to help move tea, horticultural and other agricultural produce from North Bengal's farms to larger markets more quickly, cutting down transit time for perishable goods. This will particularly benefit the local agricultural sector's access to national and international markets.
