New Delhi: The Union ministry of road transport and highways has asked the Delhi government to pay Rs 3,890 crore towards the cost of land acquisition for the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressway projects. The Delhi government has already paid its share of Rs 653 crore for the project.
Sources said that the land acquisition cost of the project was Rs 844 crore when the project was conceived in 2005. The inordinate delay in execution of the project has not only increased the project cost but has also jacked up land acquisition rate to the tune of Rs 7,800 crore in 2017 The city government is bearing 50 per cent cost of the total land acquisition in the entire project.
This means that the Delhi government’s contribution towards the project will now work out to the tune of Rs 3,890 crore. Of this amount, Rs 53.50 crore has already been paid by Delhi.
The project has been inordinately delayed despite being regularly monitored by the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister’s Office.
After 14 years, the Western and Eastern Peripheral Expressway projects has been completed by about 40 to 50 percent. Official said that Delhi was not responsible for delay of the project and it has already paid its share and as such won’t pay any further.
“Due to non-completion of the project in time, Delhi was unnecessarily burdened with higher land acquisition costs and the target to decongest Delhi was not achieved,” a senior officer told this newspaper.
Having given commitment to the project 10 years ago, Delhi is bearing the burnt of continued movement of transit traffic, its hazards and resultant pollution as well as repeated demands of additional funds for the project. Notably, the Western half of this bypass linking Kundli to Faridabad via NH-10 and NH-8 was designated as the WPE, and the Eastern half of this bypass was designed as EPE.
The construction of twin expressways — totalling 270 km — was initiated as per a Supreme Court ruling to get Delhi rid of unwanted traffic.
