With eyes firmly set on the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, which are just four months away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been aggressively pursuing the completion of several national highway projects which have either been delayed or stuck owing to various reasons in the state.
In a series of meetings undertaken between January and September, Mr Modi has been bullish on the development of several crucial national highways stretches criss-crossing Uttar Pradesh, which have inadvertently been delayed. Some of these connect and pass through his Parliamentary constituency, Varanasi.
According to details available with this newspaper, the Prime Minister, durnig a meeting on August 24, expressed concern over the inordinate delay in widening work of a 138km-long stretch between Sultanpur and Varanasi on NH-56, which was commissioned only in August, 2015.
Sources privy to the development said that Mr Modi categorically asked the ministry for road transport and highways (MoRTH) to ensure fast tracking of the project and coordinate with the Uttar Pradesh government accordingly.
He is learnt to have said during the meeting that the state government should fast track the process of handing over the balance land which is required for the widening of the stretch. Similarly, in an earlier meeting held on June 29 which was attended by the chief secretaries of states whose projects were delayed, the Prime Minister is said to have asked the transport ministry why the four-laning of Varanasi-Gorakhpur setion of NH-29 (203km) has been delayed.
The project, just like the NH-56 stretch mentioned above, till November 2014 had not even been commissioned. It was given to Jaiprakash Associates only in March, 2016.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister is learnt to have conveyed that the Uttar Pradesh government should distribute the compensation amount to those whose land has been acquire for the project as soon as possible, and hand over the balance land “expeditiously”. Also, the forest clearance proposal should be expedited by the state government.
Mr Modi had also taken up the delay in the six-laning of Varanasi-Aurang-abad section of NH-2.
The project was originally awarded in September 2011 and was to end by March 2014. However the contractor has been given a fresh deadline of April 2017 to complete the project.
Apparent the delay in transfer of land to the contractor by the respective state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, was earmarked as one of the reasons behind the project’s delay, sources pointed out.
Mr Modi is said to have asked Uttar Pradesh Government to complete disbursal of compensation amount to those whose land has been acquired while the Bihar Government officials were directed to remove encroachments on the said stretch with the help of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
During the beginning of the year, the Prime Minister while expressing concern over the delay in six-laning of Delhi-Agra section of NH-2 (180 km), had directed the authorities to complete the work by end of this year. The project was awarded in July last year.
Reviewing the project during a meeting on January 27 this year, Mr Modi had asked both Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments to fast track the dibursal of land and directed the NHAI to widen the stretch near Sikandra (Agra).
Considering the fact that the stretch is a major route for tourists visiting Agra from Delhi, the Prime Minister is said to have been quite displeased at the slow pace of its development, sources said.
