NHDP phase-I to be delayed by 1 yr

The government on Thursday postponed by one year the target date for completion of the first phase of the prime minister's ambitious Rs 58,000-crore (Rs 580 billion) National Highway Development Project.

The Golden Quadrilateral, involving four-laning of highways between the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, would now be completed by December 2004, Minister for Road Transport and Highways B C Khanduri told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on highway financing in New Delhi.

"It has been our endeavour that there should be no time or cost overrun (in completing the NHDP). GQ part of the NHDP was originally planned to be completed by 2004 and we are now going by that deadline," he said.

The target date for completion of GQ was advanced to December 2003 in early 2000 and Khanduri had all along maintained that the project would be "substantially" completed by that deadline.

"There are land acquisition problems in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and to some extent in Orissa (which is delaying the project). Besides, law and order problem in Bihar and adjoining areas are also contributing to the delay," he said, adding some of the delay was also due to the contract awarding procedure of multi-lateral agency like World Bank funded projects.

Of the 5846-km GQ, 1327-km has already been completed while another 4383-km was under implementation. Contracts for the balance 136-km were yet to be awarded, he said.