One year to go for the Modi Government, the Centre on Monday admitted that the National Highways (NHs) projects have been lagging much behind and almost 50 per cent of the projects are staggered due to various bottlenecks.
The official statement by the Road Transport Ministry is likely to create ripples since this is in complete contrast to Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari’s repeated claims that the road construction works on an average has crossed 28 km per day and that by the end of this fiscal it could even reach 40 km a day.
MoS Road Transport Mansukh l Mandaviya said that of the Ministry’s target of 15,000 km construction of NHs, only 7,589 km have been completed till the end of last month.
Mandaviya said all these in his reply to Rajya Sabha member Ritabrata Banerjee, who had asked whether the Government was way behind the overall target of construction of NHs.
“Most of the NHs projects and achievements in physical targets are getting delayed due to the problem of land acquisition, utility shifting, non-availability of soil etc,” Mandaviya said in his reply to other related queries by Banerjee for the Rajya Sabha sitting of March 26, which was not conducted due to its scheduled break.
The Centre put the blame for delay on environment and wildlife clearances and public agitations against land acquisition. “Regular review meetings are held with all the stakeholders to expedite the projects. To expedite, various steps are taken which include streamlining of land acquisitions and environment clearances, exit for equity investors, close coordination with other ministries and revamping of dispute resolutions mechanism, frequent reviews at various levels, etc,” said the Minister giving explanations regarding the inordinate delays.
Incidentally, the much hyped Meerut Expressway missed several deadlines even though Gadkari personally announced on three occasions that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would soon throw open the Delhi part of the Expressway.
The first schedule announced by Gadkari was that it could be inaugurated by the PM in New Year, thereafter a new date of January 26 was announced.
The Prime Minister had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 7,566-crore Meerut Expressway on December 31, 2015, and thereafter, he has been personally monitoring the project.
The phase-II of the project involves a six-lane Expressway and eight-laning from Delhi/UP Border to Dasna for 19.28km, while Phase-III will involve six-laning of NH-24 for 22.27km from Dasna to Hapur. Phase-IV will be for 31.70km of new greenfield alignment from Dasna to Meerut.
The 135-km-long Eastern Peripheral Expressway which too would be commissioned by the PM on the same day envisages signal-free connectivity between Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gautam Budh Nagar (Greater Noida) and Palwal.