Delay in forest clearance and land acquisition has stuck seven major four-lane projects in Himachal. The files of these projects worth seven thousand crores are gathering dust in the offices of revenue officers from the Environment and Forest Department.
This has been revealed in the review of NHAI with the Chief Minister. At present, five national highways are being converted into four-lane in the state, but land acquisition and FCA have become major bottlenecks in seven patches of these highways.
Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu questioned NHAI on the delay in the National Highway and in response to these questions, NHAI has disclosed the reason behind the delay in the project to the state government.
It is worth noting that earlier after the approval of the state and the center, the file of the project was sent to the Supreme Court for final approval, but in the month of June last year, the Supreme Court, while ruling on a petition by NHAI, had to recognize only the preliminary approval of FCA. has decided.
After this, it was expected that the construction of the four-laning routes of the National Highway would speed up, but this did not happen.
The seven National Highways which are currently stuck, the NHAI had fixed the time for their commencement in January and were to be completed in the next three years, but for the last one and a half months, the files are stuck for the Revenue Department and FCA clearance. .
In such a situation, NHAI has called upon the state government to settle the matter of land acquisition and FCA soon. After meeting Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, NHAI has said to settle these cases soon.
At present, the work of Kiratpur-Manali, Shimla-Mataur, Pinjore-Nalagarh along with Pathankot-Mandi National Highway is going on in the state.
Of these, three patches including Hamirpur bypass in Shimla-Mataur, two patches in Pathankot-Mandi and two patches of Shimla bypass have not been approved.
On this, the Chief Minister has decided to form a committee under the chairmanship of DC and after this committee, there is a possibility of speeding up revenue-related matters, while other matters are to be resolved through Forest and Environment Department only.
Expected From February 21
NHAI has great hope on forest clearance now on 21st February. A meeting of the Forest and Environment Department is going to be held on this day.
In the meeting, along with other big projects of the state, the file of seven projects of National Highway will also come up for discussion.
If these files are stamped then the construction work will be able to start fast. Significantly, in the meeting held in January, the files of the National Highway were returned.
