High-tension towers affect four-laning work near Solan

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 19

The tardy pace of removing nine high-tension towers from the Parwanoo-Solan stretch of National Highway-22 has adversely hit the progress on the four-laning of the highway.

While three towers are located on a private land, the remaining six have to be shifted from the government land. Though the new sites have been finalised after a joint inspection by officials of the Revenue Department and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the process is yet to be completed. Private land has to be acquired for the removal of the towers.

“No work on the site can be undertaken on the stretch of nearly 900 m until the towers are re-located and the four-laning work is held up. The work is proceeding in bits and pieces and its progress has been adversely affected,” said project in-charge Debasis Patra, GR Infraprojects, which is executing the work.

He added that the award for 2.5-km area, lying in various places, was yet to be worked out as several plots had been missed in the land acquisition process. Assigned for 30-month period, which expires in March-end, these hurdles were adding to the completion of the project though the firm had sought a 15-month extension from the NHAI for completing the project .

Executive Engineer, Transmission, KC Raghu, said the issue of providing alternative land to shift the towers had been pending before the Deputy Commissioner since November. Initially, it was stuck owing to the model code of conduct.

Though Rs 4.60 crore had been deposited by the NHAI as the cost of relocation, non-finalisation of an alternative land for relocating some towers was delaying the work, he said.

Additional District Magistrate Vivek Chandel said a notification under Section 3-A of the Land Acquisition Act had been issued for the private land, proposed to be acquired for the purpose, and the process to transfer the government land would be expedited to facilitate early shifting of the towers.

At a snail’s pace

• While three towers are located on a private land, the remaining six have to be shifted from the government land
• Though the new sites of some have been finalised after a joint inspection by officials of the Revenue Department and the NHAI, the process is yet to be completed
• The compensation for the private land, which has to be acquired for the removal of the towers, has not yet been announced