State kept off highway development project.

Kerala has been sidelined again by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) with the State failing to make it to the 950 km of highway development projects to be built at ₹30,000 crore under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

While Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu figure on the list of the eight States, Kerala is the lone southern State that has failed to make it to the NH development through PPP mode on the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) toll basis. Haryana, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the other States.

Setback

“This is a big setback for the State that has been knocking on the doors of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway for expediting the four/six laning of the 600 km NH corridor from Kasaragod in the north to Karode in the south in Thiruvananthapuram after agreeing to share 25% of the cost of the remaining land to be acquired,” a top government official told The Hindu.

“Even the tenders for developing the Thalapady-Chengala and the Chengala-Neeleswaram NH stretches in Kasaragod are not being awarded for the past one-and-a-half years,” he said. The Chief Minister had recently expressed the willingness to give ₹5,250 crore as its share to the NHAI for acquiring the remaining land. The NHAI decision to call for tenders for tolled roads comes after eight years.

As much as 1,176 hectares of land has to be acquired in the State at a cost of ₹21,000 crore for the NH development.

Neglect

Minister for Public Works G. Sudhakaran has gone on record about the neglect towards the State in the NH development and has pointed out that the NHAI had not bothered even to construct one km of NH in the State in the past three years.

These stretches have been selected on the basis of consultation with the prospective bidders. It is learnt that the NHAI has already invited the proposal for annual pre-qualification for construction of four/six laning of NH for the 950 km spread over eight States.

The 15 BOT roads include six-lane, four-lane and an eight-lane highways. The selection of the roads has come in for criticism as 24.5 km Tambaram-Chengalpattu-Tindivanam in Tamil Nadu figures on the list of both six-lane and eight-lane highways.

THE HINDU