NH-327 Four-Laning Approved: Rs 2,077 Crore for the Siliguri Corridor

The road ministry has sanctioned Rs 2,077.18 crore to four-lane a 31.02 km stretch of NH-327 through the Siliguri Corridor. That is roughly Rs 67 crore a kilometre on an alignment that already exists, which tells you where the money is going before you read a single line of scope: structures, not pavement.

What the ministry sanctioned

Gadkari announced the sanction himself on 3 September, and IANS carried it the same day out of Kolkata, where The Hans India ran the wire. Business Today filed its own report with identical figures. Two points are worth pinning down. This is a ministry sanction, not a Cabinet decision, though several feeds filed it inside a “Cabinet approves” batch this week. And the same batch carried a Rs 6,969 crore Uttar Pradesh four-laning that dates to March 2026 and has been in circulation since. The NH-327 item is new. Its neighbours in that batch are not.

What does Rs 67 crore a kilometre actually buy?

Nine named structures across 31 km works out to one roughly every 3.5 km, and that ratio is the story. The section sits on the Terai floodplain below the Himalayan foothills, where rivers arrive off the hills wide, shallow and boulder-laden. Bridge foundations in that ground mean deep piling and river training, so the concrete train stays on site: piling rigs, crawler cranes in the 80 tonne class and above, batching plants, transit mixers and boom pumps, running for most of the contract term rather than arriving in the back half.

The earthmoving side is thinner than a two-thousand-crore headline suggests. Widening an operating national highway and adding service roads on both flanks is staged work beside live traffic, done in segments: short-shuttle tippers, soil compactors, a motor grader and a paving train, not one continuous earthmoving front. For the 20 to 25 tonne crawler excavator class that Tata Hitachi, SANY and JCB all sell into, this reads as a hire job rather than a purchase, especially for contractors without an existing North Bengal presence.

Weather narrows it further. North Bengal takes one of the heaviest monsoons in the country, so usable earthwork and paving days run roughly October to May. Price utilisation across that window, not across the full contract term.

Our take: the five elephant underpasses are the line item to read hardest. Each is a structure in its own right, and wildlife clearances on this corridor tend to arrive with conditions on working hours and noise. We have not seen the clearance terms, so treat that as a risk to programme rather than something already decided.

FAQ

Is the NH-327 four-laning a Cabinet approval?

No. It is a sanction by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, announced by the minister on 3 September 2026. Some feeds grouped it with Cabinet items, which is where the confusion comes from.

Which machine classes does this project pull?

Mostly the concrete and foundation train, because of the three major bridges, the road over bridge and the five underpasses: piling rigs, crawler cranes, batching plants, transit mixers and pumps. Earthmoving and paving classes come in behind, in segments.

When will tenders come out?

No tender date, execution mode or contractor has been announced. Watch the ministry and NHAI bid portals rather than assuming a schedule.

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Source: The Hans India