Chandigarh: Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari has written to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann raising concerns over threats and incidents of violence with the contractors and staff of national highway authority of India (NHAI) and demanding stern action against the perpetrators.
Gadkari, who has sought the chief minister’s personal attention in his letter written on August 9, has pointedly cautioned the Punjab government that NHAI will have no other option but to terminate eight other severely affected projects spanning 293 km and costing Rs 14,288 crore if the law and order situation does not improve.
Stating that NHAI is developing greenfield and brownfield National Highway corridors including Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway in Punjab, Gadkari highlighted serious safety concerns for the NHAI officers, contractors and their staff as well as the issues related to the pending land acquisition matters.
Gadkari said that he had been informed about two recent incidents which occurred on the Delhi-Katra Expressway projects in one of which an engineer of the contractor was brutally assaulted in Jalandhar district and also enclosed photographs in the context. He said that even though an FIR had been registered in the case, a stern action is required to be yet to be taken against the perpetrators.
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Citing the other incident which took place in Ludhiana, Gadkari said that the project camp of the contractor of Delhi-Katra Expressway was attacked by miscreants who also threatened engineers of burning the camp and their staff alive. Gadkari said neither an FIR has been filed nor any miscreants arrested.
Referring to his recent meeting (July 15) with the officers concerned from NHAI and Punjab government about the progress of the projects, he said that while he was assured that pending issues related to land acquisition and law and order would be resolved on priority, no progress has been made in this regard and the situation has further worsened.
The Union minister further wrote that the NHAI has already terminated three projects in Punjab with a total length 104 km and costing Rs 23,263 crore and that if the situation does not improve, the NHAI will have no other option but to cancel/terminate eight other severely affected projects.
“In view of the above, I earnestly request your personal intervention in these matters which would go a long way in resolving the pending issues in NH projects thereby expediting development of NH infrastructure in Punjab’’, Gadkari wrote.
SUKHBIR BADAL HITS OUT AT MANN
Meanwhile, opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal expressed shock over what he alleged that chief minister had compromised Punjab’s development and endangered its future generations by willfully neglecting to acquire land for the Delhi–Amritsar– Katra Expressway and refusing to ensure the safety of the NHAI officers and staff due to which three NHAI projects had been terminated even as eight other projects across were at the risk of cancellation.
Sukbir alleged in a statement here the chief minister had allowed governance and law and order situation to decay to such an extent that the Union minister was compelled to ask him to intervene to retrieve the project and asked the chief minister to take all steps needed to retrieve the Expressway project.
