Chandigarh: The regional office of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in Chandigarh has told the Punjab government that contractors tasked with the construction of the four-lane Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway are “not feeling safe” owing to the “continuing law and order problem in the state”, and there is a possibility of them leaving ongoing national highway projects in the state unfinished.
In a letter addressed to Punjab chief secretary Anurag Verma, Vipnesh Sharma, regional officer, NHAI Chandigarh, highlighted an incident of alleged physical assault of an employee working on a project by villagers who Sharma said were immediately freed on bail.
He also wrote about police inaction in another incident involving an alleged threat by a subcontractor to “burn down” the project site along with the staff.
Sharma wrote that such incidents are “affecting the morale and safety” of engineers of the NHAI and the contractors.
He added that on 20 July, villagers assaulted an employee of a contractor Evrascon-MKCIL (joint venture) when he was on duty near village Fatehpur in Nurmahal. The employee had to be hospitalised. “Though an FIR was lodged by the police the accused villagers were immediately granted bail,” Sharma wrote in the letter Monday.
Citing another incident, he wrote that a hundred miscreants, claiming to be members of a farmers’ union and led by employees of a subcontractor in Jagraon, Ludhiana, entered the Evrascon-MKCIL project camp office and threatened to “burn down the project camp and its staff alive”.
Despite multiple complaints to the Ludhiana deputy commissioner and the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Ludhiana (Rural), no action was initiated against the subcontractor, he added. Sharma attached the series of complaints given by NHAI project directors to deputy commissioners on which no action had been taken, along with stills from CCTV footage of the project camp attack, and of the employee who was assaulted.
In response, Verma wrote a letter Tuesday to state police chief Gaurav Yadav asking him to take action on the alleged assault and threat mentioned in Sharma’s letter.
“This is a very serious matter. You are requested to direct the officers concerned to lodge FIR against the guilty/miscreants. You are also requested to direct the officers concerned to take necessary action for the safety of NHIA officers and contractors,” Verma wrote.
The NHAI’s complaint to the chief secretary came barely a month after Punjab lost three vital road projects of the NHAI on account of farmers protesting against acquisition of land, and demanding better prices than awarded.
Land for at least 150 acres for sections of the Katra-Amritsar-Delhi Expressway is pending acquisition following farmer’s protests. The four-lane project is one of the most prestigious projects of the NHAI and is being monitored by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
A meeting to review various NHAI projects, including the Delhi-Katra project, is expected to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 August.
Sources in the NHAI told ThePrint that the “extraordinary adverse conditions” being faced by the NHAI in Punjab would be brought up by the agency during the meeting.
Also read: Why Akali chief Sukhbir Singh Badal expelled brother-in-law Kairon from party ahead of polls
Status of Punjab projects
Last month, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari held a meeting to review projects in Punjab. Responding to a question raised by Rajya Sabha MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney, Gadkari confirmed Tuesday that three projects worth Rs 3,303 crore had been terminated due to non-availability of land.
On 1 August, Punjab Public Works minister Harbhajan Singh held a joint meeting of Punjab government officers and the NHAI to review the status of land acquisition for national highways and discussed strategies to overcome challenges in land acquisition.
In Punjab, the NHAI is developing 1,500-kilometre-long national highways at a cost of Rs 52,000 crore. However, projects worth Rs 42,000 crore are either stalled or delayed.
In June, NHAI chairman Santosh Kumar Yadav wrote to the Punjab chief secretary, requesting him to intervene in the matter. He wrote that for 31 ongoing projects with a total length of 1,150 km, which cost Rs 42,175 crore, all of the required land had not yet been delivered to the NHAI. Apart from the issue of land acquisition, the chairman highlighted that disbursement of Rs 3,700 crore to land owners was pending for some projects and in others, there had been a delay in announcement of compensation awards.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)