Government announced construction of a new ring road which will run outside Goa, connecting Maharashtra to Karnataka. The project was announced by the Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday, in response to Goa CM Promod Sawant and minister for power and renewable energy, Shripad Naik’s plea for an alternative to ease the burden on national highways.The road will skirt around the outer edge of the coastal region and is expected to cost between Rs 12,000 crore and Rs 15,000 crore, PTI reported.“The Union ministry of road transport and highways is considering a ring road from Patradevi (village on Goa-Maharashtra border) to Karnataka which will run through the outer side of Goa, avoiding to cut through middle of the state, to decongest the national highway,” said the transport minister while addressing a gathering in south Goa.Gadkari was speaking at the foundation stone-laying ceremony for an upcoming observatory tower on the new Zuari Bridge, which he said is being developed on a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The tower, inspired by Paris’s iconic Eiffel Tower, will include viewing decks, a restaurant and other tourist-friendly amenities.“I had suggested that the tower should be like Eiffel Tower from where you can see Goa and the ocean” the minister said, adding, “The completion of the tower in Goa would make it an international attraction. The towers would be famous across the world.”He said that Prayagraj in UP would get another such project.Commenting on the revenue that can be generated through the tower, Gadkari said that the government can earn crores of Rupees as a revenue through the GST on the ticket for visitors. He further suggested the tower should display Goa’s history of liberation. “We should tell the history in a transparent manner with the use of technology.”In addition to the ring road and observatory tower, Gadkari announced several other infrastructure projects totalling thousands of crores. These include:
- Rs 1,200 crore for a four-lane road from Cuncolim to Benurdem in South Goa
- Rs 2,000 crore for a four-lane road from Karnataka border to Mollem
- Rs 1,000 crore for four-laning the stretch between Mollem and Khandekar
- Rs 1,200 crore for a new bridge near the existing Zuari bridge at Borim
