About Rs125 crore would be spent for the relocation of shops and houses for the proposed Raipur-Dhamtari four-lane project, officials said on Thursday.
The project cost of the 80 km long four lane road which was earlier estimated at about Rs411 crore, which included the work of land acquisition could also get escalated, they said.The Union Environment Ministry had approved the terms of reference for widening of the 79.25 km road in 2011, official sources informed. For this, authorities will have to cut as many as 13, 248 trees.
The Ministry had proposed that the government should plant 40,000 trees to reduce the damage under compensatory afforestation.The administration would also need to remove make shift houses, buildings created along the road in the villages of Debpuri, Dumartarai, Sadanidarbar, Mana, Nimora, Abhanpur, Barbha, Bhatagaon, Chati, and Sambalpur.
large patches of agricultural lands of these villages will also be acquired for the project. At present, the width of the road is about 24 meters which would be widened to 60 meters.The administration may need to acquire as many as 500 acres or 221 hectares of land for the project.Of them, 123 hectares are privately held agricultural land and houses have been built in rest of the 97 hectares of land.
Similarly, between Raipur and Dhamtari there are four big bridges and 56 small culverts. During the road widening work, the administration has planned to build four big bridges and small bridges on nine culverts.
Between Raipur and Dhamtari, as many as 28 bus stoppages would be created. The State government has prepared a plan to rehabilitate 420 families who would be affected by the project.Three years ago, the estimated cost to build one kilometre four lane road was around 5.9 crore. Now this cost is expected to rise.