Bhubaneswar, Nov. 25: A road project that was supposed to be completed in 2014 might not be ready even by 2015, when it will be needed to deal with a huge rush of devotees to Puri on the occasion of Nabakalebara.
Construction of the bypass on NH-203 from Pandra to the Daya river as part of converting the Bhubaneswar-Puri road into four lanes began last month but the progress in land acquisition is so slow that the project might not meet its deadline.
Thousands of people take this road to Puri daily. Traffic will increase exponentially in 2015 when lakhs visit the temple town to witness Nabakalebara, or the renewal of the wooden images of Lord Jagannath and his siblings.
The last Nabakalebara was held in 1996. All stakeholders, including the state government, hope that the 67.25-km road with several bypasses and one rail overbridge between Bhubaneswar and Puri gets ready before the auspicious occasion. The present single-lane NH-203, which is nearly 60km, gets jammed during festivals.
Sources at the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) said there would be three more such bypass roads on NH-230 at Pipili-Dandamukundapur, Chandanpur and Harekrushnapur and a rail overbridge at Samjajpur to facilitate smooth flow of traffic to and from Puri. The 67.25-km Bhubaneswar-Puri National Highway project has been undertaken by a consortium. “Till date, less than 40 per cent of the land acquisition target has been met. Work was not progressing because of frequent changes in the post of the land acquisition officer. Recently, a new officer has joined office in Puri and we hope that the acquisition process will start very soon. We have started work only on the stretches where land is available. We are unsure whether the project will be completed by 2015, in time for Nabakalebara,” an NHAI source said.
Work was to start by January 30, but because of land acquisition delay, work started in October. Several court cases also delayed the work. The consortium is expected to take three years to complete the work, and the project is to be run on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) mode. After 29 years, the operator will hand over the project to NHAI.
NHAI officials added that the consortium would invest Rs 500.29 crore along with an NHAI grant of Rs 193.78 crore as viability gap funding to facilitate the construction.
As part of the NH-203 four-laning project, the bypass road will provide better communication facilities to 11 villages, starting from Pandra near Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital and ending just before the Daya bridge near Lingipur in Bhubaneswar.
“The bypass design plan for the city was taken up as it was becoming difficult to pass the stretch from Rasulgarh and Samantrapur. Widening the existing structure means stumbling blocks such as removing encroachments and legal issues. A bypass can improve connectivity to the outskirts,’’ said Adiyta Kumar Ray, project director, NHAI, Odisha. “The rate of urbanisation in and around Bhubaneswar and the growth of Puri and adjoining areas as a major tourist destination is always on our minds. These four bypasses alone will make for 33.72km of new road. New bridges will also be built to deal with congestion. At present, there is lots of congestion on Daya bridge,’’ Ray said.
Mrutynjay Tripathy, a state government employee who travels daily through Ravi Talkies-Tankapani Road, said: “A new bypass from Pandra to Lingipur will have a profound impact on the land price and real estate development along the stretch. There should be a policy to restrict real estate development in agriculture zones.”
Manoranjan Ray, a real estate developer, said: “There should be a policy for restricting use of agricultural land for real estate development. But the development authority should provide barren land on the city outskirts for real estate development. Otherwise with the development of the new road, agriculture fields might be used for housing leaving roads jammed and accident prone.”
