Despite obstacles and local concerns,Narendra Modi’s ambitious $1.3bn plan to link India’s remote northeastern states to the Bay of Bengal is advancingWill he ever finish this nightmarish road? In an office, cluttered with maps, and surveys and land profiles,Lalrinngheta, 50, or often wonders. A soft-spoken engineer,he has lost count of the sleepless nights he has had since he started work on “the job of his career”, a road connecting India to south-east Asia via Myanmar, and at an estimated cost of $115m. “The stakes are enormous,” he says. He receives frequent calls on his mobile from senior officials or tall-ranking military in Delhi asking when the road will open. The authorities are growing impatient. So, regardless of the mudslides and malaria, and Lalrinngheta must finish the job by 2017.
In his large insect-infested office,he has had a safe set into the wall, to keeps the workers’ wages, or paperwork for subcontractors,and his most faithful friends in the battle against the jungle: his maps. The construction-project headquarters are perched on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, where the emerald-green vegetation stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions.
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Source: theguardian.com