Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari has assured Dharwad MP and BJP State president Pralhad Joshi of convening a meeting of senior officials of the department on the development of national highways in Karnataka in general and the Dharwad Lok Sabha constituency in particular.
Mr. Joshi met the Union Minister at his office in New Delhi on Monday and apprised him of the various pending projects concerning development and upgrading of national highways particularly those that pass through the Hubli-Dharwad region, a press release said.
Mr. Joshi brought to the Minister’s notice that time taken to release funds was delaying development of bypasses and national highways in the region. He raised the issues of long-pending demand for developing the two-lane bypass between Hubli and Dharwad into a four-lane and the delay in expanding the Hubli-Haveri four-lane national highway into six-lane, the release said.
Although land acquisition for the construction of a bypass connecting national highways 218, 63 and 4 had been completed, the work could not be taken up as there was delay in including the project for the annual plan of 2014–15 and in sanctioning funds, Mr. Joshi said. Mr. Gadkari assured Mr Joshi of convening a meeting of senior officials and also inviting him for the meeting. Mr. Joshi submitted a memorandum to the Union Minister, the release said.
