Chandigarh, Aug 23 (PTI) Punjab’s Minister for Public Works and Power, Harbhajan Singh, on Friday said the state government is committed to completing the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) projects.
“For this, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann has held meetings at his level also and all issues will be resolved soon,” he said in Moga, according to an official statement.
He dismissed that there is a problem with land acquisition in the state and assured that the relevant lands will be acquired and handed over to NHAI soon.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had written to the Punjab chief minister earlier this month, saying the NHAI will have no other option but to cancel or terminate eight more severely-affected highway projects in Punjab if the law and order situation does not improve.
The total length of such projects is 293 km and it costs Rs 14,288 crore, the Union minister had said.
According to Gadkari, he had been informed about two incidents which occurred recently 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 dated August 9.
The Union minister had pointed out another incident in Ludhiana district, where the project camp of the contractor of Delhi-Katra Expressway was attacked by miscreants and also engineers were threatened of burning the project camp and their staff alive.
He had also written that it is pertinent to note that due to pending issues related to land acquisition and prevailing law and order condition, a number of contractors have requested to foreclose contracts and have raised claims against the NHAI.
The minister had revealed that the NHAI has already terminated three projects, amounting to Rs 3,263 crore, due to land availability challenges.
Gulab Chand Kataria, who recently took over as new Governor of Punjab, had asked officials to complete all central projects in Punjab without any delay and said any problems in the implementation of a project should be communicated in writing for quick resolution. PTI SUN KSS KSS
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