A dispute over funding has stalled the Centre’s ambitious Rs12, 000-crore project for developing 5,624 km of roads and 48 bridges in the Maoist-affected States.
The Road Requirement Plans (RRP-Phase 2), which propose development of roads in the left-Wing Extremism (lWE)-affected 34 districts in eight States, are on hold as the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Home Ministry are at loggerheads over the issue of funding.
“We are in talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs to fund the project as they are the nodal agency for infrastructure development in the Naxal-affected zones. They have been maintaining that they are yet to get approvals from the Ministry of Finance,” said an official from MoRTH.
“The MHA was supposed to fund the RRP-phase I from their Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS), which is a fund devoted for development in the Maoist areas, but it did not. We can’t fund this project as it will eat into most our annual budget allocation,” said the official.
The official said that the proposal was first drafted in 2011, when the costs for the project totaling a road length of 7,294 were estimated to be Rs10, 740 crores. later, in 2012, after suggestion to shorten the road length from the Finance Ministry, the project was pruned to 5, 624 km and 48 bridges.
“The project cost must have escalated by at least 20 per cent in the past four years, if not more. But going by conservative estimates, we have forwarded a proposal of
Rs12,000 crore to the MHA, but we are still to hear from them,” said the official.
Meanwhile, officials in the Home Ministry said that they are in talks with the Finance Ministry for fund sanctions for RRP-II, as their SIS allocation had been transferred to the states in the annual budget announcement in March.
“Road development in Naxal-affected areas has always been an Achilles heels for the ministry as contractors do not come forward due to perennial law and order problems. We are still trying to complete works under RRP-I with our own funds. We have communicated to the MHA that we will not be able to fund the second phase,” said the official.
Until February this year, under the RRP-I plan- of the about 5,477 kms road length, a total of 3,471 km has been developed at a cost of Rs4,617 crore. At least, 2000 km of road works are still pending before Government moves to the second phase of road development.