and acquisition for national highway (NH) projects in build, operate, and transfer (BOT) and engineering, procurement construction (EPC) modes has been restructured to meet the target.
To monitor and follow up land acquisition, revenue officers are to be posted by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) on deputation.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, in its guidelines, has decided to post adequate number of revenue officers in the Ministry, NHAI, and the NHIDCL. The NHAI and the NHIDCL have been given the nod to post retired revenue officers as consultants at their headquarters.
The regional offices of the Ministry and the project implementation units of the NHAI and the NHIDCL should have at least one retired revenue officer as consultant. The officer should be from the respective State and well versed with local land policies.
Henceforth, the Competent Authority for Land Acquisition (CALA) will be assigned cases for only Rs.250-300 crore. This is to ensure that the authority nominated by the State is not overburdened.
If land acquisition involved more money, the appointment of additional CALA may be considered to rationally divide the work.
The implementing agencies have been asked to maintain a record of the performance of CALA within the State.
The report should have land acquisition cases where the notification under Section 3A of the NH Act, 1956, is pending for six to 12 months.
Further, the deposit and payment of compensation under Section 3H pending for 12 months has to be included among other things.
The revenue officers should submit monthly reports to MORTH and headquarters of the NHAI and the NHIDCL.
MORTH is insisting on acquisition of 80 per cent of land before award of BOT projects and 90 per cent for EPC projects. Official sources said the new norms had been drawn up in view of delay in land acquisition and awarding of NH projects.
