Minister Nitin Gadkari visits Andaman and Nicobar Islands to review highway projects

Union minister Nitin Gadkari is on a tour to Andaman and Nicobar Islands to review various national highway projects in the archipelago, a senior official said on Saturday.

The Union Minister for Road, Transport and Highways arrived in Port Blair on Friday and held a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Admiral (Retd) D K Joshi and later reviewed national highway projects, he said.

On Saturday, he interacted with BJP workers and discussed various issues related to the development of the archipelago.

"We requested his intervention for the completion of various pending work, including those related to land conversion, medical facilities, higher education, and roads," a senior BJP worker in Port Blair said.

Later, he visited Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Island (previously known as Ross Island), another official said.

Ross Island, once the base for the British administrator of the penal colony in Port Blair, is a 20-30 minutes boat journey from Port Blair.

In Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Island, Gadkari visited a World War II-era Japanese bunker, Smritika Museum built by the Indian Navy in 1993, and several other monuments, the official said.

A senior official of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited (ANIIDCO) briefed him about the proposed national memorial dedicated to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

In the evening, Gadkari will visit the Cellular Jail National Memorial in Port Blair, an official said.

The Cellular Jail, entirely made up of individual cells for solitary confinement of prisoners, has been preserved as a national memorial and attracts visitors round the year.

At the Cellular Jail National Memorial, he will visit Martyrs' Column and lay a wreath on the memorial of freedom fighters.

He will also visit 'Swantantraya Jyot', a tribute to thousands of freedom fighters who suffered incarceration in the prison during the freedom struggle.

On December 29, the Union minister will visit Swaraj Dweep (previously known as Havelock Island) and stay there till December 30.

Sources said he would leave the archipelago on January 1.