Bittu raises delay in NH-1 completion in House - Says concessionaires should not be allowed to make huge profits
Saturday, 26/07/2014
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140726/punjab.htm#12
Ludhiana : Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu raised the issue of completion of the National Highway-1 in the Lok Sabha. In a statement issued here, Bittu said he had requested the government to intervene and direct the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to expedite the completion of the Panipat-Jalandhar National Highway-1 in public interest.
He said since the concessionaires had failed to complete the project within stipulated time, they should not be allowed to make huge profits at the cost of the common people. He advised the concessionaires to stop collecting toll from the general public till the completion of the entire stretch of the road.
Bittu said the Panipat-Jalandhar National Highway project was running 33 months behind schedule. The six-laning project from Panipat to Jalandhar commenced on May 11, 2009, and it was scheduled for completion in 30 months, ending November 11, 2011, at a total cost of Rs 2,747.55 crore.
Since then, it has missed five deadlines and the last being March 31, 2013. In the meantime, the project cost has escalated, the expenditure on the project was Rs 3,280 crore by the end of October, 2012, and about 30 per cent work was still to be completed.
The NHAI had planned to finish 25 per cent of the work by May 2010, 65 per cent by May 2011, and the entire project by November 2011, but only 80 per cent work was completed by the end of March 2014, with most of the flyovers and underpasses still under construction.
There are four toll plazas on the stretch at Panipat, Karnal, Shambu and another near Ludhiana. The Karnal toll plaza alone is earning average revenue of Rs 35 to Rs 37 lakh per day. The total revenue earned from the toll plaza from 2002 to 2011-12 is about Rs 753 crore and it is consistently increasing due to an increase in the number of vehicles. The revenue which was Rs 38.92 crore in 2002-03 jumped to Rs 134.55 crore in 2011-12.
