The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has sanctioned a Rs 1,420-crore loan for the Bihar government to upgrade six state highways into two-lane roads.

“Our ultimate aim is to convert all state highways into two-lane roads and the current loan would be used for converting 303.35-km of state highways into two-lane roads,” state road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

The ADB loan approval came on Monday.

Minister Nand Kishore said while work on three of the roads will start in December, the rest will start in January next year.

The projects will be completed in 30 months from the start of work.

The roads to be upgraded are Udakishunganj-Bhatgama (29.48km), Ghogha-Panjwara (43.35km), Akbarnagar-Amarpur (29.30km), Kadirganj-Khaira (75.1km), Bihiya-Jagdishpur-Piro-Bihta (54.52km) and Bettiah-Narkatiaganj-Bhinknathori (71.6km).

At present, Bihar has 4,006km of state highways of which 2,808km have already been converted into two-lane roads.

The Nitish Kumar-led NDA government of November 2005 started bringing in improvements to Bihar’s road sector.

At that time, part of Rs 5,000-crore central funds had been earmarked for road development projects.

Even the ADB has been quite liberal in providing Bihar loans to improve its roads and the first such loan of Rs 1,667.22 crore had been provided in 2008. It was for upgrading 824.22-km of nine state highways.

Another loan of Rs 1,500 crore came in 2010 for upgrading five state highways (374.25km) and Rs 1,800 crore in 2013 for four state highways (254.506km).

Minister Nand Kishore said Bihar was already holding negotiations with the ADB to convert all of its state highways into two-lane roads.