How much more time will it take to complete outer ring road?

Date :05-Sep-2019

Principal Correspondent :

NHAI issues one more notice to Contractor for the slow progress

The outer ring road, a very good idea, it seems is dying its natural death. The foundation stone for outer ring road starting from Jamtha reaching Gondkhairi and then to Kamptee-Kanhan bypass, was laid in presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari in 2016. Come 2019, the completion is still uncertain. It was assured then that the road would be completed in May 2019. The project is going with a snail’s pace. Six months ago, not more than 35% work was completed. Same situation exists till date. When asked about the delay in the project, N L Yewatkar, Project Director of NHAI said, “It is unfortunate that the project could not see light of the day after passage of three years of bhoomipujan. We have issued several notices to the Contractor for the delay, but it is not good. Recently also, we issued them notice.

As far as NHAI is concerned, we are known to make payments immediately and we did it.” A Rs 1,170 crore project of constructing 64 km road, taken up by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) with its share of 40% while the contractor was supposed to borrow 60% from the banks. The NHAI would be paying that 60% amount in installments. Mumbai Entry Point Limited (MEPL), a company owned by Jayant Mhaiskar received the project. The project came into existence with a thought that it would reduce inconvenience of the truckers and citizens as well. The work has not moved an inch forward for the last over 10 months. During the same period some work was completed.

After that it got slowed down. Very few kilometers of road got concretisation, at some places the bolders are lying without getting crushed, the PQC machines are in a stranded state. The halting of the work has made the iron material get rusted. Some of the people expressed fear that if the rusted iron material is used in the road then it would prove very dangerous. The people from whom MEPL had taken material had to make lot of efforts to get the payments. For some period MEPL had to lock its three offices. Later on, it released the payments.