Patna: The Bihar government on Saturday took exception to Union minister Nitin Gadkari singling it out for delay in Centre-assisted road projects.
Gadkari, the Union minister for road transport and highways, had on Friday said that the ministry's projects in Bihar were stalled for want of land, and had asked the state government to pay attention to land acquisition. A day later, the state government blamed the new land acquisition law that came into effect from 2014.
"The implementation of the new Land Acquisition Act in 2014 led to many changes in directives and processes. It led to much time taking in land acquisition. Now processes and directives are clear, hence land acquisition is going on smoothly," said a release by the state public relations department said.
It also asserted that the "state government will initiate land acquisition promptly for the Bharatmala project once the Centre sends request with regard to the roads in Bihar selected under it".
The Bharatmala project seeks to connect 550 district headquarters with minimum four-lane roads and move 80 per cent freight traffic to national highways. It will subsume all existing highway projects.
"The problem of land acquisition is present in every state," said road construction principal secretary Amrit Lal Meena.
Meena said: "The density of population and the pressure on land is very high in Bihar. These make acquisition work complicated and time consuming. In a state like Bihar we have to struggle for every kilometre due to high population density. However, all district magistrates have been given a timeframe for various projects in which they have to complete the acquisition."
The department has formed a land acquisition cell of experienced officers. "We expect all land acquisition related work to be completed within three months," said a source in the department.
Another state official pointed that Bengal tops the country when it comes to land acquisition problems for central projects.
A senior Bihar bureaucrat, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said that the Centre was also responsible for the delay in the roads and bridges projects in the state as it took a rigid stance on various issues and lacked a practical approach.
"They (the Centre) stipulate that 60 to 90 per cent land should be first acquired before any work on the project, including bidding process, is started. It should waive this condition in states like Bihar and start the work once some land is acquired. The rest will be acquired as the work continues, cutting down unnecessary delays," the senior bureaucrat said.
Sources in the know said the release by the state public relations department was issued on the instructions of chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Asserting that all possible assistance and participation in the construction of basic infrastructure in the form of roads and bridges were being ensured, the state government also gave a low-down on the 82 road projects worth Rs 54,700 crore that are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore announced for Bihar in the run-up to the 2015 Assembly elections. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is to implement 24 of these projects, while the national highway division of the road construction department is to execute 58.
Per state government figures, work on 47 of 82 projects is going on. Ten projects are in the bid or approval stage, detailed project reports for 25 projects are being made, of which 18 are to be made by the state and they will be despatched to the Centre by August 31 this year.
The state government asserted that work is going on in all the projects in which execution has started, except the Patna-Koilwar section of the Patna-Buxar four-lane road. It pointed out that it has recommended an elevated road between Shivala and Bihta in Patna district for the purpose.
