Around 277.3 km stretch of 18 state highways has been denotified as "arterial roads" by the state government.
A notification that has been uploaded on the website of the state Public Works Department (PWD) on Tuesday night stated that stretches of the state highways those passing through different municipalities and municipal corporations have been denotified as arterial roads.
It may be mentioned that denotification of the state highways comes just after the Supreme Court announced to ban liquor sales within 500 metre of national and state highways. It led to the closure of 2,140 liquor sales outlet in the state. With the state government denotifying stretches of state highways as arterial roads, around 1,200 out of the 2,140 outlets can be reopened.
It may be also mentioned that Rajasthan government has denotified 190 km stretch of 10 state highways those passing through 16 districts as "urban roads or district roads."
Since the decision to denotify certain stretches on national highways is in their hands, some states and union territories have already approached the Centre considering a huge revenue loss.
In Bengal, the roads those have been denotified as arterial road passes through different civic bodies in 16 districts including North 24-Parganas, Nadia, Bankura, Hooghly, Purulia, East and West Midnapore, Burdwan, Burbhum, Howrah and Malda, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Darjeeling and Cooch Behar in north Bengal.
Around 7 km stretch of the state highway, starting from Durgapur barrage to Bankura has been denotified as arterial road which is under the Durgapur Municipal Corporation. Similarly, the 40-km-long stretch from Guptipara to Mogra in Hooghly has also been denotified.
The stretch passes through areas under 10 municipalities starting from Mogra Municipality to Uttarpara Kotrang Municipality.
In East Midnapore, the 8.20 km stretch from Mechogram More to Atberia under Panskura Municipality has been denotified.
Again in north Bengal, the state highway from St Philomina School Fatak to Bhutan House which is under Kalimpong Municipality has been denotified as arterial road. It is a stretch of around 5.50 km long. In Cooch Behar, the stretch of 2.25 km from Mathabhanga College to Panchanan More and in Alipurduar, the stretch of 3 km from Alipurduar Chowpathy to Assam Rail Gate has also been denotified.
According to an official of the state finance department, with denotification of around 277.3 km stretch which was a part of state highways, around 1,200 out of 2,140 liquor outlets lying on that stretch can be opened.
If all 2,140 outlets were closed, the estimated loss of the state government would have been Rs 2,400 crore. However, the redefinition of the road will minimise the financial loss and it would stand at Rs 1,000 crore.