India builds important road-link joining Afghanistan with Iran
New Delhi, Dec 19, IRNA - India is building a 217-kilometer Zaranj-Delaram highway, perhaps the most important road-link in land-locked Afghanistan.
According to an All India Radio report, the Border Roads Organization, BRO, is constructing the highway joining the country's border with Iran at Zaranj and the garland highway at Delaram.
The garland highway connects Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz. With the completion of the highway, goods from Afghanistan's main cities can be brought overland to the border with Iran and from there these will be transported to Chabahar port in Persian Gulf and vice versa.
The BRO Chief Lt. Gen. A K Nanda said that the project cost was originally estimated at dlrs 70 million but there has been cost overrun because of the security situation in southwestern Afghanistan.
He said the highway runs through the drug-cultivation belt where there is huge resistance to the work being done by the BRO.
About 300 Indians are working on the project.