Context:

• In December 2016, PM Shri Narendra Modi has laid the foundation stone for the Chardham highway development project in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun.

More details of the Pariyojana:

• The project is an ambitious initiative to improve connectivity to the four main Himalayan pilgrimage centres in Uttarakhand, called Char Dham.
• The project’s main objective is to develop around 900 km of national highways.
• These highways will be built in Uttarakhand at an approximate cost of Rs 12,000 crore.
• The project will make travel to the Char Dham (Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath) safer and more convenient.
• The project involves widening the existing, geometrically deficient highway that connects the four abodes.
• Apart from widening, the road transport and highways ministry plans to improve the stretches to two-lane carriageway with paved shoulders, protect landslide hazard zones, construct bypasses, long bridges, tunnels and elevated corridors to ensure safety for the users.
• It will have proper slope stabilisation to ensure protection against landslides.
• The project is expected to be completed by 2018.

Source:PIB