The government is accepting bids to help improve the notoriously deadly highway that links Yangon and Mandalay.
A total of 126 firms have applied for a build-operate-transfer contract for the road, the Myanmar Times reported.
“We are trying to make it a perfect expressway,” U Win Pe, director general of the Road Department under the Ministry of Construction was quoted as saying at a Naypyidaw press conference on Tuesday.
There’s a long way to go. The road is the site of hundreds of crashes each year.
One high-profile accident in May last year claimed 12 lives and injured 29 others when a bus fell off a bridge.
Traffic police blame the highway’s death toll on driver negligence, drunk driving and speeding, according to traffic police.
Experts have pointed out that the road also lacks safety features like warning signs, reflectors and rumblestrips.
The road, which opened in 2009, was constructed hastily after the formerly military junta suddenly ordered it built in 2005.
Engineers have previously admitted it was a rush job.
Photo/ Wikicommons/ Phyo Wy
