Gadkari voices serious concern over tardy progress in NH completion

Gadkari, who undertook a state-wise review of the national highways projects, analyzed targets and achievements of these projects and underscored the need for effective black spot (death traps) management to ensure road safety.

The national highways in the disaster-hit Uttarakhand came in for a special review and Gadkari expressed his displeasure over the progress in restoring and repairing roads in these vital border areas which also connect pilgrimage centres in the hill region.

The Minister ordered a performance audit of the Border Road Organisation (BRO) which is responsible for building and maintaining strategic roads in this area.

He suggested a special session to review the projects being handled by the BRO.

Gadkari called for regular monitoring of the progress in all prominent highway projects including Delhi-Jaipur, Delhi-Dehradun, Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Punjab, and highways in Uttar Pradesh, J&K, Haryana, Himachal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu.

During the day-long review meetings, Gadkari laid special emphasis on road safety measures and asked the representatives of different states to take short-term, medium term and long term measures to remove the already identified black spots which were notorious as death traps.

The Minister took to task some of the concessionaires managing highway projects in some states and warned them that they would not be allowed to charge toll unless the highway were fully operational.

The contractors failing to meet deadlines may face serious consequences he warned.

Gadkari was briefed about the bottlenecks in the way of speedy completion of the highways which included problems relating to land acquisition, environmental and forest department clearances and cash crunch facing the contractors. He assured all possible assistance to the concerned agencies & hoped the state governments too will co-operate.

The meeting Chaired by Shri Gadkari was attended by the Minister of state for Road Transport, Highways & Shipping Krishan Pal Gujjar, Secretary, Vijay Chhibber, other senior ministry officials, the chairman and members of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), the BRO officials, the senior PWD officials, transport commissioners & police officials from the concerned states.