Ahmedabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit poll-bound Gujarat on Sunday where he is expected to launch a slew of projects.
Modi, on his third visit to his home state this month, will land in Bhavnagar around 11 am. He will inaugurate the first phase of the Rs 615-crore ‘roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro)’ ferry service between Ghogha in Bhavnagar district and Dahej in Bharuch in the Gulf of Cambay.
This ferry service will reduce will reduce the distance between the two towns from 310 kilometres by road to 30 kilometres. Modi had called it his “dream project”.
He will address a gathering in Ghogha and undertake a journey to Dahej from Ghogha on the ferry. From Dahej, he will leave for Vadodara, where he is scheduled to inaugurate and lay the foundation stones for projects worth over Rs 1,140 crore. The PM will hold a rally in Vadodara around 3 pm.
Ajay Bhadoo, Chief Executive Officer of Gujarat Maritime Board which is executing the ro-ro project, said the first phase of the service to be inaugurated by Modi on Sunday is meant for passengers.
In the second phase, which would be ready in two months, cars can also be carried between the two towns. “It is a complex project which involves the complicated marine structure of the Gulf of Cambay, on which it is built. The service reduces the distance between the two towns from 310 kilometres by road to 30 kilometres which can be covered in one hour,” Bhadoo said.
Modi had laid the foundation stone for the project in January 2012, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
In Vadodara, Modi will inaugurate eight different projects worth Rs 1,140 crore. Vadodara Municipal Commissioner Vinod Rao said Modi will dedicate to people a Rs 100-crore city command and control centre in Badamadi Garden, Rs 125-crore Janmahal city transport hub and multi-level parking (under PPP), a Rs 160 crore multi-modal city transport hub, Rs 267 crore waste-to-energy processing plant.
The other projects are a Rs 166-crore water treatment plant, two flyovers collectively worth Rs 265 crore, a Rs 55-crore deer safari park, and a Rs 6-crore veterinary hospital. He will also address people at Navlakhi compound in Vadodara.
Modi had last visited Vadodara, a constituency from where he contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election and won by a record margin, on October 22 last year to inaugurate a new airport terminal building and distribute assistance devices to the divyang (specially-abled) people. He had also won from Varanasi seat in Uttar Pradesh which he retained.
The PM had visited Gujarat on Monday when he addressed the BJP workers at a rally in Gandhinagar.
Prior to that, Modi had visited his hometown Vadnagar on October 8 and also inaugurated and laid foundation stones of various projects in Rajkot, Vadnagar, Gandhinagar, and Bharuch.
His visits assume significance as Assembly elections are due in Gujarat in December.
Source: News18