Finding farmers’ demand for enhanced compensation for land acquisition financially unviable, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has put on hold the ambitious 32-kilometre greenfield project in Mohali.
The ₹700-crore road was planned from IT Chowk (PR-7) near the Chandigarh International Airport to the Kurali-Chandigarh road to decongest Chandigarh and Zirakpur by providing an alternative route to traffic coming from Delhi and going to Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The authority’s decision comes after it had already accorded approval for increasing the compensation for land acquisition in September last year, following protests by land owners, mostly farmers.
While earlier NHAI was to pay between ₹24 lakh and ₹4.12 crore per acre, depending on the location, it had agreed to pay between ₹1 crore and ₹1.12 crore per acre to those who were to get ₹24 lakh per acre.
It had also released ₹450 crore to acquire 450 acres in 28 villages to construct the 32-km road, but four months later, it now does not find it feasible to proceed with the project.
A senior official of NHAI, privy to the developments, said the authority did not find the enhanced compensation workable and had stalled the project for now.
Mohali district revenue officer (DRO) Gurdev Singh said they had written a letter to NHAI regarding proceeding with the project, but they had not received any response for the past three months.
{{/usCountry}}Mohali district revenue officer (DRO) Gurdev Singh said they had written a letter to NHAI regarding proceeding with the project, but they had not received any response for the past three months.
{{/usCountry}}According to sources, NHAI has already written to authorities concerned for scrapping the project and approval is awaited.
NHAI had come up with the greenfield project after scrapping the project to widen the 40-km Kharar-Banur-Tepla road in July 2019, owing to its high cost. Ashoka Buildcon Limited was finalised to carry out the project. A greenfield road is built in an area that has never been developed.
In February 2020, member of Parliament Manish Tewari had also taken up the matter of an alternative route with Union minister Nitin Gadkari, following which the Centre in its letter had stated that NHAI was checking the feasibility of a greenfield section.