ArmInfo. On the segment of the transport corridor "North-South" - Yerevan-Artashat, which was commissioned in late 2015, pits were formed, and in some areas - cracks. "The works on the restoration of this section of the highway will be implemented at the expense of the contractor's company - it is still in warranty service," Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies Vahan Martirosyan told ArmInfo on January 18.
According to the minister, for today it is impossible to say that the cracks and pits arose due to the poor performance of the contractor - the Spanish "Corsan Corviam", even if we take into account that the work, according to the actual estimate of $ 2 million per 1 km. road. In this issue, as he pointed out, clarity will be on the results of laboratory analysis. "To this day, according to the available documentation, there were no shortcomings in the construction," Martirosyan said.
Earlier, ArmInfo informed, in the course of Yerevan-Artashat of the transport corridor "North-South" in July 2017, cracks were found. At the same time, Vahan Martirosyan stated that the service agreement with the construction company of the Spanish "Corsan Corviam", responsible for the 1st and 2nd tranches of the investment program, was not completed, and the Ministry of Transport demanded restoration. Meanwhile, the Spanish company became "famous" in Armenia for its road "construction". It was "Corsan Corviam" in the summer of 2016, former Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan called the real evil for the North-South. Abrahamyan stated about the financial problems of the Spanish company and that the Ararat road is still "in the problems and made poor".
In 2018, $ 47 million will be spent on the continuation of the program for the construction of the North- South transport corridor. The funds will be attracted in the form of loans from the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Eurasian Development Bank, another 2.8 billion AMD will be received in the form of a grant from the European Investment Bank. The main front of work next year will unfold on the 84 km of the highway, which provides for laying 40-45 km concrete. The works, in particular, will be carried out on the road section from the cities of Ashtarak to Gyumri. As a result, the road from 2 lanes will expand to 4, and instead of asphalt will be laid concrete.
Meanwhile, at the end of September 2017, Vahan Martirosyan, Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies of Armenia reported that according to current calculations, the construction of the entire 556-kilometer North-South highway stretching from Bavra to Meghri will cost more than $ 2 billion, since it is only south section, between the cities Artashat and Meghri, according to preliminary estimates, will cost $ 1.5 billion. Five years ago, in September 2012, when the construction of the highway began, the amount called by representatives of the government of Armenia was more twice less - $ 962 million. For today, 150.3 million USD and 23.14 million EUR is spent. At the moment, only a 31 km section has been built and modernized, for which $ 70 million was spent. The rest was directed to excavation work on the Ashtarak-Talin and Talin-Gyumri sections. Also, work was carried out on concreting the road at 11 km. The construction of the corridor was originally planned to be completed in 2019. Already today it is officially announced that the terms are postponed for more than 2 years.
Under the "North-South" program, the Armenian government calculated the preliminary savings of $ 2.5 per hour for each passenger and $ 1 per hour for transporting a ton of cargo. As the authorities of Armenia expect, the program will allow the country in the future to mitigate the consequences of the blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, to play the role of a transit state in the freight transportation of the countries of the region, and also to join the Black Sea ring highway.