After being stuck for 10 days in slush on a 20-kilometre stretch of the National Highway 44 at the Assam-Tripura border, there may finally be some hope for truck drivers like 37-year-old Vikram Das as the administration is speeding up the repair work on the highway. Heavy rains have lashed both Assam's Barak Valley region and Tripura for the last 12 days. This has meant Tripura's only road connection to the rest of the country, National Highway 44 (renamed National Highway 8 under the new system), has turned into muck at many places.