Measures for further development of the highway industry considered at the Government session chaired by Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov.

Minister of Transport Marat Karabayev reported that this year construction and installation works covered 10.7 thousand km of roads, of which 6.5 thousand km are highways of national importance, 4.2 thousand km are local roads. According to the results of the works, the share of roads in the normative condition will reach 92% at the republican level and 87% at the local level.

As for major projects, today the works on the Big Almaty Ring Road, Kandyagash-Makat and Usharal-Dostyk highways have been completed. At the same time, taking into account the complaints from the population, the efforts are also directed to the main long-constructed roads of 4-5 years ago. These are Taldykorgan-Ust-Kamenogorsk, Karaganda-Almaty, Merke-Burylbaital, Aktobe-Kandyagash, Atyrau-Astrakhan highways. According to these projects, except for bypasses around settlements, traffic is open on 923 km.

Special attention is paid to the projects of capital repair of roads in West Kazakhstan region. Among them are Kaztalovka-Zhanibek and Unige-Bisen-Saikhin. Currently, 220 kilometers of roads are passable. Full completion of the projects is expected in 2024.

Akim of West Kazakhstan region Nariman Turegaliyev, Akim of Atyrau region Serik Shapkenov and First Deputy Akim of Almaty region Nurlan Abdrahim made reports on repair works and measures to improve the quality of local roads. 

Prime Minister emphasized that the development of the road sector has a positive effect on the growth rate of the economy. An extensive road network is extremely important for the development of domestic and foreign trade.

"Kazakhstan should become a full-fledged transportation and logistics hub. This is the task set before us by the Head of State. For this purpose it is necessary to intensify the implementation of projects in the field of construction of highways, roadside infrastructure and service," Alikhan Smailov said.

He noted that it is planned to complete reconstruction of 3.6 thousand kilometers of roads by the end of 2025. Then implementation of new projects with a length of 4.7 thousand km will be launched.

"Thus, by 2030 all international road corridors will be modernized. The main issue is to ensure the quality of road construction," Prime Minister said.

Head of the Government pointed out that from the public regularly receives criticism about the poor condition of roads. Poor-quality repairs cause particular dissatisfaction of the public. Only for the current year the state bodies received more than 19 thousand official appeals and complaints about the roads.

"For example, residents of Kostanay region wrote a collective appeal about the destroyed road from the station "Uzunkol" to the village of Troebratskoye. Moreover, this road connects the region with the neighboring North-Kazakhstan region and is a transit road to Russia. A low-quality road without crushed stone was built this year between Zhuryn station and Urkash village in Aktobe region. Residents of Taraz demand to complete the repair of the road in the Karasu microdistrict, which has been going on for more than a year. There are many such examples in all regions," Alikhan Smailov listed.

He also added that the work on providing the local road network with quality expertise is poorly carried out. At the same time, some regions carry out construction and installation works without control by technical supervision. 

Another of the burning problems of the road sector is the shortage of bitumen.

"Bitumen use technologies are not observed, which also reduces the quality of the roadbed. In addition, akimats delay granting land plots for construction projects and expansion of roadside service facilities. All these factors affect the development of the industry. Therefore, it is necessary to change the attitude to approaches in road construction," Prime Minister emphasized. 

Proceeding from the above, Prime Minister instructed to ensure timely implementation of all planned road projects, to take measures to create infrastructure for bitumen storage and to ensure control over compliance with the technology of its storage and use. 

At the same time, he pointed out the need to work on simplifying the procedure for issuing land plots for the construction and expansion of roadside service facilities.

"Akimats need to take timely action on incoming appeals of citizens on the quality of roads. Regional highways are the full responsibility of local executive bodies. It is necessary to constantly monitor the condition of roads and take prompt measures to repair them," Alikhan Smailov concluded.

#Alikhan Smailov #The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan #Government session #Highways