Work in progress at an East West Corridor project site at Mahur. A file picture

Guwahati, July 6: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) today said it would terminate the contracts of four of the five firms engaged in the construction of the East West Corridor project long the 135-km-long NC Hills district stretch within 45 days.

The decision was taken after those four firms refused to resume work on the project citing poor law and order situation.

NHAI chief general manager S.S. Nahar assured Assam chief secretary P.C. Sharma that the contracts would indeed be terminated during a two-hour high-level meeting in Dispur this afternoon to discuss the progress of NHAI projects in the state. Besides officials of the NHAI, senior officials of the home, revenue, power, forest and PWD departments also participated in the meeting.

The other assurance was to hand over the maintenance of the abandoned stretch of National Highway 54 that passes through North Cachar Hills to the state PWD. This had to be done after NHAI contractors expressed their unwillingness to work on that stretch because of a law and order problem.

“We need to know what is happening and what will happen. Precious time has been wasted. The firms said they have no security but we are saying that our security personnel attached to the project are sitting idle. We just hope that the NHAI keeps its word,” a source in Dispur said.

The government needs to keep itself abreast of the status because Sharma has been made the nodal officer for all NHAI projects in the state. This followed a meeting between the Union minister for road transport and highways, Kamal Nath, and chief minister Tarun Gogoi last month, the source added.

However, a section within the government is not very enthused with the NHAI assurance to hand over maintenance to the state PWD. “It (NHAI) was supposed to hand over the four-lane project by December but what we are getting is a dilapidated highway for maintenance. This, too, entails the same effort as building a new road in this difficult terrain.

“If NHAI cannot complete the project it should hand over the project to us. We are capable of handling these projects. The PWD completed a road project in Karbi Anglong within the deadline in spite of the area being infested by militants,” the source said.

Soon after today’s meeting, senior NHAI officials based in Assam flew to Delhi for a meeting tomorrow to discuss the situation vis-à-vis the ongoing projects in the state. “We don’t know the agenda but Assam is high on our priority list,” an NHAI source said.