A statement of Union Minister for Road Transport and National Highways Nitin Gadkari in Parliament last week that the Central Government was in the process of formulating a policy to compensate contractors who had executed road contracts but they have to be terminated for some reason, gave fresh impetus to the proposal to upgrade Hyderabad - Ramagundam Rajiv Rahadari into a national highway.
In reply to a question by Karimnagar MP B. Vinod Kumar, the Minister said that the policy which was meant to fix the present value of the projects to arrive at the cost to be paid to contractors will be finalised in 15 days.
Then, the Centre will take it up as a national highway either on build, operate, transfer (BOT) or engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) mode, he added.
Mr. Vinod Kumar told the Minister that something went wrong in the award of contract for construction of Rajiv Rahadari (highway), to one contractor when the Congress was in power at the Centre in 1991-96.
There was a crying need to upgrade this State Highway into a national highway because its geometrics were not good.
So, the matter was discussed by officials with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with a view to rectify the defects. But, Mr. Rao counselled restraint in mooting the road as a national highway because the Centre was yet to sanction 2,000 km long network of national highways across Telangana.
The Centre had given approval for 3,000 km of national highways in the State but projects for only 1,000 km were sanctioned. He advised that the proposal on Rajiv Rahadari could wait till clearances for 2,000 km were received, said I. Ganapathi Reddy, Engineer-in-Chief of Roads and Buildings (National Highways and Buildings).
He also said that it was expected to be a huge project with an expenditure of ₹2,000 crore for land acquisition and construction of flyovers and bypasses. Moreover, the concession period of the concessionaire who executed the road project had to be bought back.
The concessionaire still had 20-year period. The highway had a high density of vehicle population travelling on it. The passenger car units per day was nearly 30,000. It was taken up as State Highway with two lanes and paved shoulders of 10 mts with World Bank loan in 1995. After car units crossed 20,000, four-laning was done.
