Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, Nitin Gadkari, will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for seven road and river projects in Bihar, entailing ₹871.61 crore investment, on Wednesday.

He will be accompanied by Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Radhamohan Singh and others.

A statement said that the minister will inaugurate/lay foundation stone for two national highways projects worth ₹505 crore in Raxaul.

These include foundation stone for work of widening of 69 km section of NH-28A from Piprakothi to Motihari and Raxaul with a cost of ₹333.60 crore, and inauguration of 2-lane 40 km section of NH-28B from Chhapra to Misrauli with a cost of ₹171.40 crore, it said.

The minister will also inaugurate and lay the foundation stones of four national highway projects worth ₹353.71 crore at Bagaha, Pashchim Champaran.

These include widening to 2-lane and strengthening of 24 km road from Misrauli to Parsauni with a cost of ₹93.84 crore, widening and strengthening of 37 km road from Manuvapul to Yagnapatti-Navalpur-Raywal Chowk with a cost of ₹128.90 crore under central road fund (CRF), and construction of rail over bridge (ROB) at 91 km and 94 km with the cost of ₹131.97 crore respectively.

Gadkari will also initiate the development of 300 km long river route from Hajipur to Triveni Ghat at a cost of ₹12.9 crore under dredging work in river Gandak for facilitating water transport.

This will help in generating cargo transport capacity of 11.6 MT in the next five years, the statement said adding, there will be Roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) terminals at Vaishali, Kalyanpur, Betia and Bagaha.

The project will provide cargo connectivity from river Ganga and transport facility up to Nepal by waterway.