New 4 – lane bridge on Kosi river at Phulaut

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the project for construction of 6.930 km long 4-lane bridge at Phulaut in Bihar.

There is a 10 km long missing link between Phulaut and Bihpur on NH-106 and falling in the catchment area of Kosi River. As such, presently, the traffic from Phulaut to Bihpur requires to take a detour of approximate 72 km. On construction of the new 4-Lane Bridge across river Kosi under this project, distance between Phulaut and Bihpur shall be reduced to only 12 km.

The new bridge will generate direct employment of about 2.19 lakh man-days during construction.

The construction of this new Bridge will fill the existing 30 km long gap between Udakishanganj and Bihpur of National Highway Number 106 in Bihar, which will provide through connectivity between Nepal/ North Bihar/ East-West Corridor (passing through NH- 57) and South Bihar/ Jharkhand/ Golden Quadrilateral (passing through NH -2), besides full utilization of National Highway Number-31.

Presently, the existing NH is having single/ intermediate lane configuration with poor road geometry, therefore, average speed on the highway is below 20 km /hour. With the upgradation of highway to 2-lane with paved shoulder configuration and construction of bridge on the missing link, the travel speed would increase to the design speed of about 100 km/ hour.

The CCEA also cleared the decks for rehabilitation and up-gradation of existing Birpur- Bihpur section of National Highway-106 from Km 106 to Km 136 to ‘2 lane with Paved Shoulder’ in Bihar at a capital cost of Rs 1478.40 crore. The construction period for the project is three years and likely to be completed by June, 2022.