The State Government has denied its role in delaying the completion of National Highway projects and described the allegations regarding this as far from facts and baseless.
As per the Public Works department, the process of acquiring land for National Highways comes under the National Highways Act, which can be invoked by the Union Road Transport and National Highways Ministry. This also applies to land acquisition for BOT projects being undertaken by National Highways Authority of India. The State government is not to blame since the assistance required in this regard is given promptly by the State Government.
It has been clarified that the Union Government has accorded in-principle sanction of Rs 422.50 crore and not Rs 479 crore. Under the non-plan (PR) in-principle sanction, Rs 40 crore has been granted under the annual maintenance head. The State government has sent estimates of Rs 381 crore to the Union Government for sanction. Administrative sanction for any of these estimates has not yet been accorded by the Union government. It has been clarified that in-principle sanction is given for certain identified works by the Union government. After receipt of sanction, estimates of these projects are sent to the Union government for administrative sanction. Tenders are invited after receipt of administrative sanction. If minimum rates quoted in the tenders are 5 per cent higher than tender rates, the estimate is sent again to the Central government for revised administrative sanction. In many cases, tender validity period expires till revised administrative sanction is received.
On inviting tenders again, not only higher rates are quoted but work get delayed further.
It is clear from these facts that the system for sanctioning such estimates at the Centre is erroneous. It is clear that work on a project for which in-principle sanction has been accorded can be started only during the next year since most of the National Highways are under National Highways Authority of India and some of these roads have been handed over to the State government only some time ago. Therefore, available administrative sanction for these works is negligible. In so far as expenditure of Rs 46.71 crore is concerned, it is under last year’s administrative sanction. Sanction of Rs 479 crore has been quoted as sanction for this year, but administrative sanction of not a single rupee has been accorded by the Union government. As far as maintenance and contingency expenditures are concerned, funds will be necessarily spent by the end of the financial year. Even additional funds provided to the State government under these heads will be spent.
Importantly, the State government had to accord administrative sanction of Rs 297 crore from its own resources for maintenance of roads due to complicated sanction process of the Union government. Of this, Rs 93 crore is being spent during the current fiscal. He said that perhaps such a huge amount is not provided by any State government in the country for such works during a financial year.
Similarly, funds are provided to the State government under Central Road Fund as the State’s share on the basis of a prescribed formula. Under this head, Rs 178.87 crore has been received by the State government till June 2013. This amount has been provided against expenditure made by the State government during 2012-13. The fact in this regard is that Rs 290 crore was spent by the State government during year 2012-13. Against this, Rs 178.87 crore has been received while remaining Rs 111 crore expenditure has been borne by the State government.
Maintenance work of National Highway 75 extension (Sidhi-Singrauli) has been done with total transparency as per rules. As far as suspension of officers and employees of Sidhi division is concerned, this has been done due to inferior quality in some works sanctioned during 2010-11.