Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's special package of Rs 1.65 lakh crore for Bihar of which Rs 55,000 crore was to be spent on roads and bridges, has got stuck in hurdles posed by sluggish land acquisition and disbursement of compensation, making the ministry of road transport and highways sit up and take notice.

With Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari coming to Patna on January 29 to meet chief minister Nitish Kumar, the issues related to the stagnancy that have crept in the roads and bridges project envisaged under the PM's package will be at the centre of discussions between the two leaders.

Modi announced the special package in the run-up to the Assembly election in 2015, when he and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar were poles apart. Two-and-a-half years have passed and most schemes, especially those pertaining to the national highways and bridges, are still in nascent stage, waiting to take off.

A review meeting held by the road construction department evaluated all these schemes to find out the reasons behind the delay and has sounded out the district magistrates concerned to expedite things with instructions that "these issues will be a part of the discussions" between Nitish and Nitin.

Under the PM's package, the Patna to Koilwar section of National Highway 30 is to be made into four lanes at a cost of Rs 1,287 crore of which only Rs 713 crore has been disbursed till now as compensation for land taken from the public. There has been no disbursement after December 2016.

Similarly, the special package scheme to convert Koilwar-Bhojpur sections of NH-30 and NH-84 at Rs 263 crore has seen disbursement of only Rs 88 crore till now as villagers are demanding higher compensation for residential and commercial plots and buildings.

The four-laning of the Patna-Gaya-Dobhi section of NH-83 at Rs 526 crore with loan assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) is also in the doldrums, as only Rs 222 crore has been disbursed to landowners, who are demanding compensation at a higher rate.

The six-lane bridge across the Ganga in Mokama at Rs 108 crore, the foundation of which Modi laid during his visit to Patna on October 14 last year, has seen disbursement of only Rs 36 crore till now.

Issues of similar nature plague almost all 84 national highway and bridge projects across the state, which are part of the special package. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) also delayed projects by sitting on proposals the state government sent it for revision the estimates of various projects.

Asked about the delay, road construction minister and senior BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav blamed his predecessor Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the younger son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad. "He (Tejashwi) stalled all big projects, which were part of our Prime Minister's special package for Bihar, on one pretext or the other. The state government decides the alignment of roads and bridges made with central funds but even that was not done. Detailed project report of many schemes were not made during the period he was at the helm," Nand Kishore said.

He added that he fixed the alignment of the projects with the chief minister's consent after the NDA government came to power in the state in July last year. "The previous road construction minister did not want these projects to take off because they would have added to our Prime Minister's popularity," Nand Kishore added.