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PM’s review by month-end, Punjab puts land acquisition on fast lane
Nearly 17 kilometres of land for the project was acquired in the past week in Punjab, with more than 25km acquired this month.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi slated to review the progress of centrally-sponsored projects in Punjab this week, the state has put the land acquisition for the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway on a fast track.
Nearly 17 kilometres of land for the project was acquired in the past week, with more than 25km acquired this month.
The PM’s review comes close to the heels of Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari in a hard-hitting letter to the chief minister Bhagwant Mann on August 9, warned that NHAI will have no other option but to cancel/terminate eight severely affected highway projects in Punjab with a total length of 293km costing ₹14,288 crore, if the law and order situation does not improve in the state.
Besides highlighting issues of delay in land acquisition, Gadkari’s letter also referred to two incidents in Jalandhar and Ludhiana wherein NHAI staff and contractors working on the Delhi-Katra Expressway were assaulted and threatened. Gadkari’s letter also referred to NHAI having already terminated three projects in Punjab with a total length of 104 km and costing ₹23,263 crore.
Punjab Government, however, has categorically denied all these accusations, with CM Mann blaming the NHAI for the delay in land acquisition and said that the two incidents of threats and violence in Jalandhar and Ludhiana are attributable to its concessionaire/ contractor.
According to the figures updated on Tuesday evening, Punjab acquired more than 4 km of land in the Malerkotla and Kapurthala districts.
As per the latest land acquisition figures accessed by HT, out of the total 295 km of land falling under the project in Punjab, the state government has acquired 255 km and handed it over to NHAI.
“Out of land to be acquired for the project in 13 districts, the land acquisition is now complete in 11 districts. Out of a total of nine stretches that the NHAI has divided this project into in Punjab, five have already been cleared on Tuesday. Only small pieces of land were pending for acquisition, a senior Punjab government functionary said, who didn’t wish to be named.
As per data, Ludhiana and Gurdaspur are the only districts left where the land acquisition is pending.
“The state government is targeting acquire 290 km by the end of September”, the government official quoted above added.
He claimed that the issue, especially land acquisition, has been blown out of proportion and the Centre unnecessarily escalated it.
“If you look at the figures, till the start of this month, the land acquisition was complete on 230 km out of 295 km stretch falling in Punjab,” the official added.
According to sources in the Punjab government, the Prime Minister’s scheduled review of the projects in Punjab on Wednesday (August 28) has been delayed and he might take it up on Thursday or Friday.
Ever since the issue of land acquisition has escalated, chief secretary Anurag Verma has personally supervising the situation and has instructed all deputy commissioners concerned to send him an update on a daily basis.
