PM Narendra Modi to lay foundation for nine projects in Bihar worth over Rs 14,000 crore

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday will lay the foundation stone for nine highway projects and also inaugurate optical fibre internet services in Bihar ahead of the state assembly elections.

The announcement was made on Saturday in an official release by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).  

These nine highway projects will be constructed at a cost of Rs 14,258 crore and would cover a cumulative road length of about 350 kilometres. 

The PMO said in a statement that the proposed highways will pave the way for the state's development as they will enhance better connectivity, convenience and economic growth in and around it.

Movement of people and goods will also improve substantially, especially with the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, it added.

The PMO described the optical fibre internet services programme as a prestigious project covering all 45,945 villages of Bihar which will enable a "digital revolution" to reach the state's remotest corner.

This project will be executed by the combined efforts of Department of Telecom, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and Common Service Centres (CSC).

The PMO said the CSC has 34,821 centres throughout the length and breadth of Bihar, and it will utilise this workforce to not only implement this project but also make it professionally run to provide optical fibre internet services for common citizens at every village.

The project would also entail implementation of one Wi-Fi and five free of cost connections to government institutions like primary schools and anganwadi centres among others, it said.

This will lead to digital services like e-education, e-agriculture, tele-medicine, tele-law and other social security schemes to be easily available to all citizens of Bihar at the click of the button, the PMO said.

PM Modi had recently laid the foundation of a number of other development projects, including those related to railways, infrastructure, bridges, drinking water and sanitation, in the state which is set to go to the assembly polls in October-November.