$70m for Winter Road Maintenance

An estimated 2,500 billion rials ($70 million) has been allocated for road maintenance in winter and provision of relief supplies in ‘resting areas’ in the cold regions of the country, said Esmaeil Gholami, deputy head of the Roads Maintenance and Transportation Organization (RMTO). Following heavy snowfall on Monday and Tuesday, rural roads in 240 villages in East Azarbaijan Province in northwestern Iran were closed, “but the roads will be re-opened on Wednesday,” said Ali Hooshyar, head of Road Maintenance Office at the provincial Road and Urban Development Organization. There are 85,000 km of minor roads, 34,500 km of arterial roads and more than 15,000 km of rural roads in the country at present, IRNA reported.