The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the Philippines will commence construction work of the Secondary National Roads Development Project (SNRDP) on 15 August 2012, after the winning bidder is announced.

The $214.4m SNRDP is being funded by Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), using a five-year grant to rehabilitate roads.

The MCC SNRDP has four contract packages, with Package 3, which includes the rehabilitation of 64.6km of road from San Julian and Sulat to Balangkayan and Llorente, the first segment to be worked on.

The Philippines Department of Public Works and Highways Region 8 project engineer Rene Galapon was quoted by PIA as saying that a big part of the project design is the development of an environmental management system and the relocation or resettlement implementation plan.

The detailed engineering designs, road surveys, pavement tests, geotechnical and draining and hydrology studies have been completed, in addition to the bridge evaluation and hydraulics, plan preparation and cost estimation, according to Galapon.

Contract Package 1, which will be up for bidding on 15 July, will rehabilitate the 16.3km road stretch between the Buray Junction and Barangay Tenani in Paranas, Samar.

DPWH will repair the 63.8km road from Barangay Tenani to the municipal boundary of San Julian and Sulat as part of Package 2.

The fourth and final contract package includes 79.5km of road, which stretches between the town boundaries of Balangkayan and Llorente to Guiuan.