Balangir: Ghanashyam Sah-u, a local resident, sees no immediate remedy to the problem of commuting in the town because of traffic congestion.

Himanshu Tripathy, another local resident, who said: "The population of Balangir has increased manifold in the past few years. So hs the number of vehicles. Yet, the government is showing no urgency to manage the traffic flow in the town."

That lack of "urgency" on part of the government bears testimony to the fact that the 23-km-long bypass road that aims to ease the town traffic is yet to come up.

"It is very difficult to move in the town during office hours as the roads are so congested due to heavy traffic. Though the heavy vehicles are not allowed on certain roads from 6am to 9pm, they happen to pass through the town, causing traffic snarl," said Sahu.

Delay in land acquisition and forest clearances has stalled the progress of the bypass here. The bypass has been divided into three parts and three agencies - Idco, works department and NHAI - are implementing it.

While 5km stretch from the KBK ITI on Sambalpur road to Larkipali has already been constructed by Idco, the next 6km stretch from Larkipali touching Patnagarh road via Medical College and Kendriya Vidyalaya to reach the NH-26 at Bijakhaman will be built by the works department. Similarly, another 12km stretch of the project from Madhiapali on Sambalpur road will reach the NH-26 at Bijakhaman via NH-57 near Puintala will be constructed by the national highways authority. The last two stretches have private land and reserve forest.

An amount of Rs 36 crore has been sanctioned for payment towards compensation for land acquisition. But it has been lying with Balangir tehsildar since 2013-14. Notification for land acquisition has also been issued since 2013-14.

The Balangir NH division's executive engineer Ashok Padhi blamed the revenue department for the inordinate delay. "We had placed money with the revenue department for land acquisition. But, they did nothing. Now, the cost of the project has gone up. There are also problems in land acquisition and forest clearances. Work is possible only when all these problems are sorted out," Padhi said.

"Some 1.50 lakh people now live in Balangir and two national highways pass through the town. It is high time the government realised the problem and finished works of the much-delayed half-complete bypass project," Tripathy said.