Road transport and highways ministry has put the plan to create a separate authority for building expressways on the back burner fearing opposition from state governments on the issue of acquisition of land and its commercial exploitation. Road minister Kamal Nath, who is keen on setting up the new body on the lines of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) expeditiously, feels he will be able to convince states in another six months.
?Land acquisition is a major part of any kind of infrastructure project. It is going to be another six months. States will have to decide on the alignment of roads because the states have a larger road map,? he said on the sidelines of a conference entitled ‘India -US: An Agenda for Co-Creation’, jointly organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and US India Business Council (USIBC). The ministry has been working towards establishing Expressway Authority of India since last year. The ministry has envisaged constructing 15,600 km of national expressway network in three phases by 2022. It also aims to build 7,000 km roads annually and has assigned the task of constructing 20 km of road per day to NHAI. Nath thinks that expressways should get a different treatment than highways.
?Expressways should be looked at separately,? he told reporters. Nath’s ministry had proposed a revenue generation model for funding construction of expressways. As per the model, commercial establishments were to come up on the sides of the high-speed roads and the new authority was to receive fees from them. However, officials now fear that states may object to the model. ?We have seen the problems in states like Uttar Pradesh. Considering that land is a state subject, states may also claim first right over the revenue generated through commercial exploitation of land,? a senior official in road ministry told FE.
In August this year, farmers had protested against Yamuna Expressway that connects Greater Noida to Agra. The UP government had given the project to Jaypee Infratech. As per model approved by the state, the contractor was also given the right to build five townships along the expressway. Following protests, the state government had to cancel the townships project.