Big ticket highway projects, stuck for a long time, are set to greet Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari when he meets Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday. One of the major roadblocks Gadkari would be up against is the National Highway Authority India (NHAI) failing to get green nods for its different stretches.
A top official of the project implementation unit of the NHAI said that the meeting is going to be extremely crucial as far as progress on this line is concerned. "All the incomplete projects would be on the cards for tomorrow meeting and all of those would be reviewed. But one of the major issues is related to forest clearance that has been the most problematic issue as far as progress in national highways in Jharkhand is concerned," said he.
Jharkhand has total 2,374 kilometres of national highways and over 280 kms are still at different phases of construction. Among the projects, the fate of the ambitious NH-33 Ranchi-Jamshedour four-laning of 83 km stretch between Ranchi and Rargaon is stuck in the absence of a green nod. Road construction major Madhucon Projects limited is building the 163 km road and due to the problem refreshed timeline for its completion has been set at June, 2015.
Sources in the Forest Department said that forest and environment clearance for the stretch is still pending. The four-laning project is part of phase III of National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) with estimated cost of over Rs 1,500 crore. "If we get the desired clearance other issues would be resolved in two months time and within four months construction work would be started here," said the official.
This apart, four-laning of Hazaribagh-Ranchi section of 74.4 km is also getting delayed for the want of similar clearances and constraints related to land acquisition. Revised completion time for the stretch, again based on NH-33 has been kept for 2015. "land acquisition issue has also been a major problem but since the new Chief Secretary has come we have seen significant progress on this front. There are less number of hurdles now coming from land Revenue Department and other wings of the State Government," said a senior official of the land Revenue Department.
Along with that, the State Government would be stressing on four-laning of NH-75 which connects Bihar, passes through industrially deprived sections of Jharkhand such as Palamu, Garhwa and latehar but at the same time touches industrial belts of Jamshedpur and Bokaro.
"It is a very important segment of the National Highway and needs to be strengthened. I had raised the demand for putting request before the Centre in this regard and the Chief Minister had assured to do that in the Assembly. I hope the matter would be discussed in tomorrow's meeting," said BJP legislator from Chhatarpur Radha Krishna Kishore.
On the part of the Centre, it is likely that the Union Minister would press for his idea to go for cemented highway also in Jharkhand. "It can be even beneficial for the hilly states like Jharkhand where wear and tear on coal tar made roads is greater. This makes the maintenance a costly affair," said the NHAI official.