KMP e-way to miss yet another deadline

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 22

The Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway, the 136-km green and smart expressway intended to ease traffic by bypassing Delhi on its western border, is set to miss the August deadline on account of slow pace of work.

Though final touches are being given to the 83-km stretch of the Kundli-Manesar section, being executed at a cost of Rs1,863 crore, yet it would not be completed this month. Though no formal date for the completion has be scheduled yet the state government was hopeful that the project might be thrown open to the public by October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The 53-km Palwal-Manesar stretch of the 136-km expressway, completed at a cost of Rs457.81 crore, was opened to traffic in April 2016.

Last month, Public Works Minister Rao Narbir Singh had gone on record saying that “the work on it was in final stages and it would be completed by August-end”.

However, ongoing monsoon season and certain technical issues are being blamed for ‘slight delay’ in completion of the project.

The original deadline for the expressway, conceived during Prime Ministership of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002, was July 2009. However, on account of litigation and other controversies the project continued to hang fire during the 10-year rule of the Congress Government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The Manohar Lal Khattar government put the project on fast-track after resolving the legal issues. The two expressways — the Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal (Eastern Peripheral Expressway) and the KMP (Western Peripheral Expressway) — were touted to be the first smart and green highways in India.

Govt proposes projects after Vajpayee 

Jhajjar: The state government has sent a proposal to the Centre for naming of the KMP Expressway, Global City in Gurugram and airport in Hisar after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar disclosed this while interacting with mediapersons before receiving the ashes of Vajpayee in Bahadurgarh on Wednesday. Khattar said Vajpayee was a towering figure who always stood for the cause of the poor and the downtrodden. TNS

INLD to oppose renaming move

Sonepat: District INLD president Padam Singh Dahiya on Wednesday said the party would oppose any move to rename the KMP expressway after Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Dahiya told the media here that the foundation stone of the expressway was laid by former CM Om Prakash Chautala in 2004 and it was named after former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal. “Instead of indulging in cheap politics in renaming projects, the government should concentrate on completing development works,” he said. oc