Roads between district centers and agro-towns should be put to rights, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said on 21 October as he received a report on the development of the network of national highways and transport infrastructure to ensure an hour’s accessibility to the satellite cities, BelTA has learned.
A large-scale government program “Roads of Belarus” is running in the country. It will be completed in 2025, after that a new program will be drafted for the next five years. The plans include renovation of the M-10 road from Gomel to Brest and completion of the construction of the Minsk-Polotsk-Vitebsk highway.
“That’s about it. We have built major roads; Minsk has good transport links with regional centers,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
At the same time, not only international and national highways require attention. “We need to connect district centers with agro-towns, this is a very important thing to do if we want people to stay in the countryside and have a decent life there. They deserve it. Therefore, this large-scale program should include the construction of roads from district centers to all agro-towns. As for agro-towns, we will decide within a year what kind of roads we need and where we will build them given the ongoing amalgamation of agricultural enterprises,” the president said.
More than half of the necessary roads are already there, but they need to be renovated and put in order, the head of state demanded.
“Some 300 kilometers of gravel roads,” clarified Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Sivak.
“This is almost nothing. Therefore, we will build roads with a hard surface, and restore the rest of the roads. Of course, there are large settlements, large villages. They are usually located on the highways between district centers and agro-towns. Wherever there are none, we will build access roads based on the prospects of their future use,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The president also noted that road construction and repairs are quite expensive. According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, it costs Br350,000 to do routine repairs, i.e. pothole repairs, on one kilometer of road. And it takes an average of Br10 million to carry out a large-scale renovation, when two lanes are turned into four.
“We spend money that is paid by carriers that transport goods mainly along international highways, or major national roads. We take money from them and invest it in the road network. We also invest budgetary funds. And if we do not take good care of major roads, no one will use them [for international haulage]. This means there will be no money at all for road projects. Therefore, people should understand that we are pressed for time; thus, we prioritize the construction, maintenance and repair of these main roads. We do it every year. And we will keep doing it because it brings us money,” the head of state explained.
“In other words, we have already come up with an algorithm of building and maintaining roads. All that remains is to implement it,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.
