The 136-km long, 6-lane project has to be completed by February 2019, but Khattar announced many deadlines, all of which have been missed; new target is 30 June 2018.
Chandigarh: The Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway, which has missed several deadlines announced by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in the past two years, will take another month and a half for completion.
The project, also called Western Peripheral Expressway, is aimed at decongesting the National Capital Territory and providing a high-speed link to northern Haryana with Gurgaon, Faridabad and Palwal.
Media baron Subhash Chandra’s company Essel Infra Projects Limited has been executing the project, awarded by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), since August 2016. Its physical progress to date is 80 percent with over 25 kms (out of 83) ready. Work is, however, pending on some overbridges and a few big and small bridges.
HSIIDC officials said a fresh deadline — 30 June 2018 — was put forth by the company during a review meeting of the project held earlier this month.
According to the agreement between HSIIDC and Essel, the project has to be completed by February 2019. However, for the past two years, based on the inputs given by the company, the CM and his ministers have been announcing various completion dates, ahead of the schedule, all of which have been missed by the company.
Jinxed project
The almost 136-km long, six-lane road project was conceived in 2004. Together with the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (Kundli-Ghaziabad Palwal) — being executed by the National Highways Authority of India — the Western Peripheral Expressway will form a ring road around the national capital, which vehicles not bound for Delhi will use to bypass the city.
The project is, however, ‘work in progress’ for 14 years now. It was allotted to concessionaire KMP Expressway Limited in 2006 and the project was to be completed in 2009. But when the concessionaire failed to complete the work, the concession agreement was terminated in March 2015.
The 52.32-km stretch of the KMP Expressway from Manesar to Palwal was allotted to a private joint venture company while the work on the remaining 83.32 kms was awarded to Essel in July 2015. Modi laid the foundation stone of the Kundli-Manesar part in November 2015.
The Manesar-Palwal stretch was completed and inaugurated by union transport minister Nitin Gadkari in April 2016. He promised that the rest of KMP will be ready in 400 days.
Missed deadlines
In July 2015, days before Essel was handed over the letter of award, a cabinet sub-committee was informed that the deadline for completion was fixed for August 2018.
In March 2016, during the ‘Happening Haryana Global Investors Summit’ Khattar repeated Gadkari’s announcement claiming that the project once restarted would be finished in 400 days. When construction began on 1 September 2016 Khattar said the countdown had begun. The 400 days ended in October 2017. In fact, in June 2017, when Haryana public works minister Rao Narbir Singh visited the construction site, he was told that the work would be over only by 31 December. On 30 October, Khattar while addressing a press conference in Jhajjar repeated his minister’s information that the project will be complete by the year-end.
But in December while interacting with an industrialist visiting him, Khattar informed him that the deadline had been pushed to 31 March. In February this year, he repeated the deadline while addressing the ‘Hunkar Yuva Rally’ in Jind where BJP national president Amit Shah was also present.
On 12 April while presiding over a meeting of industrialists and real estate developers in Gurugram, Khattar said the KMP would be completed within one-and-a-half month after which the Prime Minister would inaugurate the expressway. But the likelihood of its completion by the end of this month is little.
Govt to collect toll
Unlike the earlier concessionaire — KMP Expressway Limited — who had to build operate and transfer (BOT) the project after a toll collection period of 20 years and nine months, the new concessionaire will be paid a “semi-annual annuity” of Rs 157.5 crore for 17 years (including 2.5 years of construction) by the Haryana government. The government will, in turn, collect the toll.
Seven toll plazas will be located on the entire stretch of the expressway. The toll amount has not been finalised as yet.
The government has already spent more than Rs 1,600 crore in acquiring almost 4,000 acres of land for the project. Another Rs 500 crore has been spent on the Manesar-Palwal stretch.