Patna: The road construction department (RCD) is preparing a new land acquisition policy to tide over the hurdle posed by people unwilling to part with their land for government projects.

It is a problem that has delayed many projects by years.

"We are preparing a new policy for land acquisition. The concept will be of land pooling. We will take twice the required land for our projects from farmers and common people. Half of it will be developed along the roadside and returned to them," road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav said.

Nand added that his department has hired three specialists for the purpose and they are preparing the policy. The RCD minister was presenting the government's reply on budgetary demand of Rs 6,889 crore for the 2018-19 fiscal on Monday.

Earlier, the RJD, Congress and CPM legislators had questioned the government on various aspects of road construction in the state, including bad roads, delay in repair and construction work. They had also moved a cut motion.

Providing details about various new projects of the department, Nand said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had allotted Rs 54,700 crore in the special package announced for Bihar in 2015.

"A total of 82 road and bridge projects would be completed under this. The tender and work allotment have been done for 45 of them, while 12 are in the stage of tender processing or approval. Detailed project reports are being prepared for 25 projects. We will start work on all the projects by the end of financial year 2018-19," the minister said.

He gave details of 12 national highways, whose combined length in the state comes to 514km, and have been selected for widening under the PM's special package. Nand Kishore said Patna ring road will be constructed for better traffic management.