To get stalled road projects in West Bengal and Kerala moving, the Government has planned to write to the State Governments to suggest measures to end the deadlock.
Minister of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari is likely to write to the Chief Ministers of West Bengal (WB) and Kerala to get projects moving in the States. land acquisition for four-laning of national highways has been stuck for over eight years.Sixteen major national highway projects entailing about Rs15,000 crore investments are stalled due to inordinate delays in land acquisition, of which seven are in WB alone, six in Kerala, two in Goa and one in Tamil Nadu.
“Road building hasn’t moved in the two big States in many years. Even in the review meeting, which the minister (Gadkari) took with the State secretaries earlier this week — performance in Bengal was among the weakest, followed by Kerala — after the north-east and lWE (left wing extremist) States,” said an official from the Ministry.
“Minister was very unhappy and since no solution could come out, he will now write to the State CMs and ask for solutions to end the deadlock. Most problems in the States were related to land Acquisition issues and private contractors seem to have given up,” he said.Gadkari plans to write to Mamata Banerjee and Oommen Chandy to seek their intervention in problems of land acquisition in their States which have been a major impediment to infrastructure development in the States.
The main highway project in West Bengal is four-laning of NH-34. The project would have three packages. For this 1,336 hectares of land have to be acquired. So far, only 400 hectares — 30 per cent of the total land needed has been acquired.
NH-34 is an important highway and lifeline for North-South road transport in West Bengal as it passes through the State longitudinally and connects the north-eastern States and neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The commercial traffic from Haldia Port, Kolkata and industrial areas in South Bengal heading towards North Bengal have only NH-34 route.“Several representations to the chief secretary have been made in the last few years but things haven’t progressed. Even the new Government’s taking over hasn’t helped,” said the official.
Even in Kerala where left Democratic Front Government had been locked in a brawl first over the width of four-lane highways and then land acquisition work hasn’t moved much. After settling the lane width issue, lDF Government had put a freeze on all land acquisitions in the State for a year, putting in limbo five four-laning projects on NH-17 and three on NH-47.
National Highways Authority of India had cancelled all contracts for four-laning. With Congress Government in power, the work is slowly coming back on track, but is still delayed.
