Gadkari said he has information about two recent incidents that occurred on the Delhi-Katra Expressway projects.
New Delhi: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, in a letter to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, said that state-owned NHAI will have no other option but to cancel/terminate eight more severely-affected highway projects in Punjab with total length of 293 km costing Rs 14,288 crore, if the law and order situation in the state does not improve. The letter bears the date August 9.
Gadkari said that he has information about two recent incidents that occurred on the Delhi-Katra Expressway projects.
“In one incident in Jalandhar district, the engineer of the contractor was brutally assaulted. Although FIR has been registered in this regard, strong action is required to be taken against the perpetrators,” Gadkari wrote in his letter.
Gadkari pointed out another incident in Ludhiana district where the project camp of the contractor of Delhi-Katra Expressway was attacked by miscreants and engineers were threatened of burning the project camp and their staff alive.
“However, FIR has still not been filed and miscreants have not been arrested despite written requests by NHAI officials,” he said.
“If the situation does not improve, NHAI will have no other option but to cancel/terminate 8 other severely affected projects with total length of 293 km costing Rs 14,288 crore. These are mainly greenfield corridors and even cancelling one package will render the entire corridor useless,” cautioned Gadkari.
He wrote that it is pertinent to note that due to pending issues related to land acquisition and prevailing law and order condition, number of contractors have requested to foreclose contracts and raised claims against NHAI adding that the NHAI has already terminated three projects amounting to Rs 3,263 crore due to land availability challenges.
Gadkari, referring to the recent review of NH projects on July 15, which he chaired, said he was assured that pending issues related to land acquisition and law and order would be resolved on a priority basis.
“However, it has been brought to my notice that no progress has been made in this regard and situation has further worsened,” he wrote, expressing his disappointment.
Gadkari urged the state government to immediately take corrective measures, file FIR and take strong actions against the perpetrators in order to prevent such incidents in future and to restore the confidence of NHAI officials and staff of the concessionaires.
(With PTI inputs)
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