Centre approves Rs 2,077 crore for four-laning of NH-327 through strategic Siliguri corridor
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Centre approves Rs 2,077 crore for four-laning of NH-327 through strategic Siliguri corridor")
Centre approves Rs 2,077 crore for four-laning of NH-327 through strategic Siliguri corridor
The Centre has approved ₹2,077 crore to convert NH-327 into a four-lane highway in the strategic Siliguri corridor.
The Union government has cleared a Rs 2,077.18 crore project to four-lane a 31.02-km stretch of National Highway 327 in West Bengal's Darjeeling district, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced on X. The approved stretch runs from Bagdogra through Panitanki and Kharibari to Galgalia, cutting through the Siliguri Corridor, the narrow strip of land often called India's "Chicken's Neck" that links the country's mainland to its entire Northeast region.
What the Project Includes
The four-laning work will come with three major bridges, one road-over-bridge, and five elephant underpasses built along the route, along with service roads on both sides of the highway. The elephant underpasses are aimed at reducing human-animal conflict and vehicle collisions in a region where wild elephant movement is common near the forested belts around Siliguri.
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Why the Corridor Matters
The Siliguri Corridor narrows to as little as 20-22 km at some points, squeezed between the international borders of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. It is the only land route connecting Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to the rest of India, which makes any infrastructure work here carry weight well beyond local traffic concerns.
Gadkari said the project would strengthen connectivity to Northeast India and improve access toward Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, positioning it as both a regional development project and a piece of a longer-term push to build up alternate and redundant connectivity around the corridor.
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Local Impact
Officials expect the widened highway to ease congestion in Bagdogra, Naxalbari, Kharibari and Panitanki, all towns that currently see heavy traffic bottlenecks. 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.
The project adds to a series of connectivity upgrades the Centre has undertaken in and around the Siliguri Corridor in recent years, part of a broader strategy to reduce the region's dependence on a single, narrow land link to the rest of India.
