Embroiled In Delays NHDP Reveals ‘Sorry State of Affairs’: Panel

Embroiled in “inordinate delays”, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways flagship project NHDP has attracted severe criticism from a parliamentary panel that says it reflects a “sorry state of affairs”. “The committee is distressed to note that NS-EW corridor has been crippled by inordinate delays. All NS-EW projects, which are under implementation, have well passed the date of completion as per contracts, which reveals a sorry state of affairs”, the Committee on Estimates has said. The report chaired by Francisco Sardinha was tabled in Parliament in the just concluded second leg of the Budget session. The North South-East West Corridor (NS-EW) is the largest ongoing highway project in India under the National Highways Development Project ( NHDP) and involves the construction of 7,300 kilometres of four/six-lane roads connecting Srinagar in the North, Kanyakumari in the South, Porbandar in the West and Silchar in the East. The project has been plagued by delays ever since inception. After several extensions, the project timeline was extended to December, 2009, but when the Road Transport and Highways Ministry did not to adhere to even this deadline, the implementation period was extended to December, 2010, it said. However, even this completion deadline remained unfulfilled, it added. As per the Committee, contracts for construction of 444 km of roads under the project are yet to be awarded. Terming the Ministry’s plea that the actual date of completion of the project could only be estimated after all the components of the project were awarded as “fallacious”, the panel said such “enormous” delays not only project the ministry “in a bad light” but also lead to cost overruns. “The Committee is convinced that setting unrealistic targets due to poor planning is the reason for repeated extensions of the target date for completion of this project,” it has said and directed the ministry to adopt a realistic approach when fixing targets and adhere to them. It has also suggested that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) board should be entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the project on a fortnightly basis to avoid further delays. The Ministry has already drawn flak from the panel for justifying the “unprecedented” delays in the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project and has asked it to monitor the progress to avoid any further delays. The GQ project, also under the NHDP,