Allowing Soma Isolux NH One Tollway Private Ltd to go ahead with the widening work on the 291-km Panipat-Jalandhar highway, the Supreme Court on Thursday set March 31, 2015 as the deadline for completion of the work to lay two additional lanes and clarified that the company would have to pay penalty if it overshot the timeline.
Setting aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s last year order that cancelled the 2008 contract given to the company, a Bench headed by Justice Gyan Sudha Misra said that the company ?shall forthwith restart the construction including setting up of toll plaza at the agreed point and continue with construction of the remaining area of the highway project and shall complete the entire construction of the highway on or before March 31, 2015, failing which the concessionaire company shall be liable for penal consequences to be determined by the NHAI in terms of the Concession Agreement.?
It allowed the company?s plea for shifting one of the toll plazas closer to Karnal and Yamunagar to prevent the vehicles from bypassing the toll gate to avoid payment which, according to the contractor was resulting in loss of revenue to the tune of R689 crore a year rendering the project unviable.
The plaza should be shifted from the existing point at 146 km to any location between 110-117 km expeditiously but not later than two months, the Bench clarified.
It also asked the company to submit quarterly progress reports to the Authority on the progress made on the construction work. Under the contract, the company would convert the four-lane highway to six lanes and recover its investment and earn a reasonable return by collecting toll for 15 years.