BELAGAVI
A parliamentary panel comprising the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture has pulled up the Centre for incomplete national highway projects and has asked it to complete the pending highways, including the Belagavi-Goa NH4A, on priority.
This will give motorists and commuters from Karnataka and Goa further hope, as the Karnataka High Court had also recently given its green signal to restart the work which was stalled due to PIL by environmentalists.
In its report tabled in the Parliament recently, the panel has expressed concern over the unwarranted delay caused in implementing the four/six laning of various national highways, including the Belagavi-Panaji NH4A.
A huge backlog involving 888 projects covering 27,500 kms at an estimated cost of around Rs 3.15 lakh crore has adversely affected the development process.
The parliamentary panel has asked the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to prioritise its delayed road projects before taking up new projects.
The 31-member committee chaired by TG Venkatesh said delays cause huge time loss and greater fuel consumption, to several road users across India, other than the increase in the cost of the project that has to be incurred by the ministry.
“Keeping in view the delays in projects in various states, the ministry has been asked by the panel to evolve a delay-resolution mechanism,” the committee observed.
“This has also affected the implementation of Bharatmala Pariyojna Phase-1 by 2025-26, which is already lagging four years behind the originally targeted completion of Phase-1 by FY 2021-22,” the committee observed.
The Centre is expected to take up the long pending four/six laning of the 86-km stretch between Khanapur to Anmod.
