The Planning Commission has called a meeting to sort out the differences between the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the Uttar Pradesh government over the Rs 40,000-crore 1,047-km-long Ganga Expressway project.
However, industrial development commissioner Atul Kumar Gupta, who will represent the state government at the meeting, feels that the NHAI is trying to blow the issue out of proportion.
?The NHAI has somehow managed to create an impression that despite having given a commitment not to build a competing road alongside the national highway, the UP government is going ahead and planning to construct a competing stretch. The fact is that we have not given any commitment to the NHAI on this sector.?
The NHAI is understood to have argued that the Uttar Pradesh government did not follow the draft model concession agreement prepared by the Planning Commission for the project, which was awarded last week to Jaiprakash Associates Ltd and has sought the Centre’s intervention to prevent the construction of a parallel access-controlled or tolled highway alongside the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ).