The potholed Adityapur-Kandra Road. (Bhola Prasad)

Jamshedpur, Oct. 5: Finally, the Adityapur Industrial Area Development Authority (Aiada) will be developing the Adityapur-Kandra Main road, ending years of uncertainty over the poor condition of the link that’s considered to be a lifeline for the 800 small and medium enterprises operating out of the manufacturing hub.

The Aiada secretary, Shivendra Singh, said though the official letter from the state administration was yet to come, the 15 km road would be developed on a BOT or build, operate and transfer model.

“The state government has selected Aiada to develop the Adityapur-Kandra Road,” he confirmed.

Singh said as per the BOT model, Aiada will collect toll tax from vehicles to recover its investment on development and maintenance of the four-lane road constructed at a cost of Rs 25 crore in 2004.

The Adityapur-Kandra main road will be the second major infrastructure development project taken up by Aiada in the region. It is already partnering Adityapur Toll Bridge Company Limited (ATBCL) for constructing a toll bridge over Kharkai river to connect the industrial area with Mango via the marine drive.

Industrialists based at Adityapur have long been asking the state to hand over Kandra road development to Aiada. “The Adityapur-Kandra main road is important for the large number of industrial units based in the region. That’s why we requested the state to hand it over to Aiada for better maintenance in future,” said Santosh Khaitan, the general secretary of Adityapur Small Industries Association (ASIA).

Even while the road was being built, a social organisation, Jan Kalyan Morcha, had questioned the quality of work and filed a PIL against the contractor and engineers in high court last year.

The state road construction department repaired some portions of the road spending Rs 74 lakh last year. But, the repairs could not withstand the rains this year. The road construction department has allotted Rs 25 lakh again.