Minister says delay is due to adverse weather and hurdles in land acquisition

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways C.P. Joshi on Tuesday revealed that only 100 km of the 2,400-km Trans-Arunachal Highway announced under the Prime Minister’s package for Arunachal Pradesh had been completed so far. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the project in Itanagar on January 31, 2008. The Trans-Arunachal (declared as National Highway 229) highway from Tawang to Mahadevpur will pass through Bomdila, Nechipur, Seppa, Sagalee, Ziro, Daporijo, Along, Pasighat, Roing, Teju, Mahadevpur, Namchik, Changlang, Khonsa and Kanubari. The project components include construction of two-lane feeder roads connecting all district headquarters.

In a major step that could finally break the logjam over forest and environmental clearances to linear projects, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has agreed to sort out issues coming in the way of implementing these projects, as far as requirements under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) are concerned.

Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo told The Indian Express that his ministry would support these projects, considering the need for roads and railways in tribal areas.

Non-planting of saplings along national highways in the State after uprooting several old trees for taking up road widening projects has come to light through a petition filed under the Right to Information Act by tree lovers.

Answering a set of questions from a Salem-based resident, officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) have replied that a total of 7,214 trees were uprooted for four-laning project on NH 68 in Salem alone.

Major procedural amendments, including exemption from environment clearances, for roads projects are being proposed to the Cabinet Committee on Investment to achieve the UPA government's commitment

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the State Forest Department are at loggerheads over plans to cut down trees so that the Bijapur-Gulbarga-Humnabad National Highway 218 can be widened.

Contradicting the NHAI’s claims that the loss of several trees will not adversely affect the environment, the State Forest Department said that cutting down the trees will have a disastrous impact on the flora and fauna of the region.

New Delhi: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) expects to build at least 2,800-2,900 km highways under the NH Development Programme during 2012-13, which will be the highest ever completion in the authority’s history. The maximum NH construction record so far has been 2,693 km in 2009-10, sources said.

According to officials, the highways minister C P Joshi has asked the authority to achieve its internal target of 3,000 km by March-end and to expedite construction on small pending stretches so that large corridors can be brought under “completion” category. “Issues relating to every under construction stretch was discussed on Tuesday and Wednesday at the highest level where top NHAI and highway ministry officials were present,” said a source.

The woes of investors in highway projects don't seem to end. The new guidelines issued by the environment ministry, allowing work on non-forest land while clearance for projects involving diversion of forest land is pending, are cumbersome and would not facilitate investments, developers feel.

According to official sources, the developers have written to the environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, roads minister CP Joshi, NHAI Chairman RP Singh and the department of economic affairs in finance ministry, stating that the condition that in order to begin work in non-forest land, the user agency must explicitly provide for a “technically feasible alternative alignment” for segments that fall in forest land is too difficult to be complied with.

More than 3 months after they were completed, a cluster of mobile toilets, that is bound to bring immense relief to commuters waiting at the Peerkankaranai bus terminus, is yet to be made operational.

Elected representatives and town panchayat staff maintain that all the civil works as well as procedural formalities of handing over work orders for maintaining the toilets have been completed and are unable to state the reasons for the delay.

The National Highways Authority of India has asked the environment ministry to clear 25 road projects that are stuck for want of approvals.

The 266-km project is estimated to cost Rs. 20,000 crore

Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and the Centre have agreed to construct an access-controlled Delhi-Ludhiana Expressway at an estimated cost of Rs. 20,000 crore.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s proposal to revise the Delhi-Chandigarh Expressway to one connecting the national Capital with Ludhiana was ratified by Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Delhi Public Works Department Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan at a meeting chaired by Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways C.P. Joshi.