Challenges of land acquisition continues
Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has inaugurated and laid the foundation for national highways projects worth Rs.9,533 crore at separate events in Roing and Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh on 20 Dec 2018.
Gadkari complemented the agencies involved for timely completion of the projects despite obstacles like land acquisition, forest and environment clearances etc.
He said Rs.28,000 crore is being spent on construction of highways in the State and assured that work will start on stranded projects.
In Roing, Gadkari inaugurated bridges across Dibang and Lohit River System, including approach road between Chowkham-Digaru. The 30.95 km project cost Rs.1,508.30 crore.
The Minister also inaugurated the recently two-laned, 25.14 km Mahadevpur to Buri Dihing section of NH-52 B and 22.23 km Bordumsa- Namchik section of NH-52 B. The two stretches cost Rs.136.60 crore and Rs.189.91 crore, respectively.
Elsewhere, he laid the foundation for about 96.47 km of national highways projects costing Rs.2,114.82 Crore in Roing.
These include two-laning of the 74.86 km Roing-Hunli Section of Hunli-Anini Road (NH-313) at a cost of Rs.1,718.59 crore; 2-laning of the 11.31km Hayuliang-Hawai Road section of NH-113 at Rs.256.66 crore and the 10.3 km Hunli-Anini section of NH-313 at a cost of Rs139.37 crore.
In Ziro, Gadkari laid the foundation for 472 km of national highways costing Rs.5,583.92 Crore. These include the 26.12 Km Akajan-Likabali-Bame road, costing Rs.374.73 crore, and 6 packages on Joram-Kolorlang Road on NH 713 for a total length of 94.39 km, costing Rs.1,253.19 crore, and relaunched a project for 2-laning of 351.38 km of Potin to Pangin section of NH-229 at a cost of Rs3,956 crore.
Meanwhile, challenges are being faced in completing projects on schedule.
These include timely acquisition of land, shifting of utilities (like electrical lines, Water supply lines etc.) coming in the Right of Way of the Highway, time taken in obtaining statutory clearances (such as forest, tree-felling, wildlife clearances etc.) problems encountered in availability of soil/aggregate etc.
Most of these challenges relate to the states, which are sorted out through regular monitoring and reviews with the state authorities, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Mansukh L Mandaviya in said in a statement in the Lok Sabha on 20 Dec 2018.
The Ministry has set a target of construction of 10,000 km of National Highways (NHs) in the country during current financial year 2018-19. As against this target for the full year, the Ministry has achieved construction of National Highways of 5,759 km i.e. 57.59% as on 30.11.2018.
The achievement so far is by and large in consonance with the annual target keeping in view that the period of 3 months from July to September is the rainy season, when the pace of construction considerably slows down, he said.
The Ministry is hopeful of exceeding the annual target during the FY 2018-19 as there is no lack of coordination among the Central Ministries. fiinews.com
