A major railway project under the South Eastern Railway (SER), i.e., the 3rd line from Narayangarh to Bhadrak, is moving at a snail’s pace and the impediments are non-availability of raw materials of for construction and additional royalty charged on the minor minerals.
The project, worth nearly Rs 1,130 crore, commenced towards the end of 2020 and completion target period was 4 years, yet due to several bottlenecks, the work progress is only 35 to 40 percent so far.
According to sources, due to restrictions by the NGT, operations of almost all stone-crushing and quarry units have been stalled for the past two years. In recent months, the issues regarding sand Ghats and quarries and crushers couldn't be resolved and also the scheduled auction for new leases of quarries was postponed. As a result, the contractors working in the sector are grappling with the sand and stone aggregate crisis.
“Around 65 percent of the project value as well as progress is directly related to availability of fine and coarse aggregates. Until now despite the rise in prices, resulting from demand-supply gap, the contractors still continue work bearing all losses and hardships related to procurement of materials. The sudden and rapid rise in costs due to a significant rise in cost of raw materials and additional charges imposed by the district administration of Baleswar is swallowing the thin profit margins of the construction projects which literally makes the projects unviable,” said a contractor associated with the project.
The contractors said that they had requested several times to the employer (SER authorities) in writing to reimburse the additional charges which impacted their expenditure but it fell on deaf ears.
“In the past seven months, we approached the SER authorities regarding our difficulties, but till now no positive response has been received from their end. Notably, the other employers like NHAI, PWD and RWD are reimbursing the additional charges to their contractors,” they further added.
They claimed that they urged the district administration to resolve the issue related to quarry owners especially against the heavy royalty collected from them but that again resulted in vain. They warned that under the juncture, the suppliers, along with labourers, would be compelled to embark on agitation in Baleswar if the administration failed to address their issues.