21 months on, only 20% Solan four-laning work completed

SOLAN: With barely 20 per cent work of four-laning the Parwanoo-Solan stretch of National Highway(NH)-22 having been executed in the 21 of the stipulated 30 months, the private company GRI engaged for the work has an arduous task in meeting the deadline.

A view of the four-laning work under way on the Parwanoo-Solan stretch of the NH-22.

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, June 22

With barely 20 per cent work of four-laning the Parwanoo-Solan stretch of National Highway(NH)-22 having been executed in the 21 of the stipulated 30 months, the private company GRI engaged for the work has an arduous task in meeting the deadline.

The company officials, however, assert that they had targeted to complete 22 per cent work following acquisition of the land following which the target had been re-devised and added that they were only lagging behind marginally.

They will, however, have to accelerate the pace of work as the stipulated deadline for completing this work expires in March 2018. Interestingly, several key issues like design of a railway over bridge at Solan was yet to be finalized. A key meeting to finalise it will be convened at Solan tomorrow.

Another crucial issue pertaining to acquisition of about 4.5 km defence land falling under the Dagshai cantonment was yet to be finalised. Though a committee comprising revenue and defence officials was working out the cost of land acquisition the final amount was yet to be decided. Deputy Commissioner will convene a meeting tomorrow to thrash out the issue. Since no appropriate land was available to exchange the land owned by the defence authorities, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) would pay for the cost of acquiring this 4.5-km land.

With landslides becoming a recurrent feature on this road, the need to erect breast walls of higher elevation up to 6 mts was becoming an issue of key concern. While company officials say they had identified an area of 11 km which was vulnerable to landslides, raising breast walls of higher elevation would substantially perk up the project cost.

They added that this issue has been brought to the notice of the NHAI and even joint inspections had been carried out to assess its requirement. Since no additional budget was allotted they were constrained to construct 3m to 4 m high wall at most of the places confided a project official With about 20 per cent award on private land yet to be disbursed, only 52 per cent encumbrance-free land has been provided to the company till May end. This was creating hurdles in the smooth execution of the project which was proceeding in bits and pieces.