Tasked to ensure that the 135-kilometre Eastern Peripheral Expressway is put in place by the scheduled deadline of July 2018, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is facing a severe cash crunch as the Delhi Government is not responding to “several reminders” to deposit its share of `2,159 crore in the Central pool.
The information about NHAI's repeated pleas falling on deaf ears came as part of the latest status report submitted by the Monitoring Committee headed by Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to the Special Bench of the apex court hearing Delhi's pollution matters.
Work on this project, estimated at a cost of `7,558 crore, is being given to five contractors, who are simultaneously working on six segments along the entire 135-km stretch between Kundli-Ghaziabad-Noida-Palwal. But on the money part, the cost-sharing ratio for the project worked out between Governments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the ratio of 50:25:25 has yielded in payment of only `937.92 crore to the NHAI, the project proponent.
The Monitoring Committee's status report said, "NHAI has an additional fund requirement of `2,892 crore from the Central Pool." Government of Delhi has deposited `653.50 crore only in the Central Pool as against their latest share of `2812.62 crore. Accordingly, `2159.12 crore are pending since long on the part of Delhi Government for deposit in the Central Pool. The Government of Delhi has been requested numerous times to deposit their pending share in the Central Pool."
As regards the other two States, Uttar Pradesh has to deposit `508.92 crore against its share of `1406.31 crore while Haryana Government needs to utilise the amount from their own resources to the tune of `1798.38 crore towards land acquisition. Haryana can claim an amount over and above this amount from the Central Pool on furnishing utilisation certificate, the report by the Committee said.
The other parallel project, the Western Peripheral Expressway, looks promising and ready for completion by February 2019, the Committee informed. The project manager - Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) informed the Court that the work on the Kundli-Manesar stretch is expected to complete by February 2019 while work on the remaining Manesar-Palwal section is complete and was thrown open for public use from July 15, 2016.