Jowai-Ratacherra road project off track
SHIILLONG: The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has said that the long-pending 103-km Jowai-Ratacherra road project will be delayed further due to the State Government’s inability to resolve several issues pertaining to the project.
Officials from the NHAI on Tuesday informed The Shillong Times that the work is going on but the State Government is not doing much to resolve the issues including forest clearance.
“The project will be delayed if Government does not hand over the required land to us immediately,” a senior NHAI official said adding that the necessary forest clearance for the project is also awaited.
The NHAI requires around 16 hectares of land to go ahead with the project, whereas the State government has not been able to hand over even one hectare of land to them.
The NHAI official also informed that there has been undue delay in getting necessary clearance for construction of the road through the Narpuh Wildlife Forest Reserve which falls along the route.
The project will be taken up at the cost of Rs 630 crore and it will be a boon not only for people of Meghalaya but also for those from neighbouring Assam.
The proposed upgradation of National Highway 44 from Jowai in West Jaintia Hills to Ratacherra in East Jaintia Hills on the Meghalaya-Assam border, which was scheduled to start in 2015, has been off the track for several years.
Expansion work of the arterial NH 44 has been approved under Phase III of the National Highway Development Programme and GR Infrastructure is implementing the project.
When contacted, West Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner Arun Khembhavi said that a notification has been issued for social impact assessment and officials from Meghalaya Institute of Governance will visit the site on June 10 for field inspection.
He said that the after the report is submitted, the district administration would release the compensation money to the land owners even as he added that land acquisition has become a very long exercise after recent amendment to the land acquisition Act.
( He also said that a meeting was held recently where land owners were requested to handover the land to the implementing agency for carrying out the work but some land owners did not agree as they wanted the compensation first .
The East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner could not be contacted to know the latest status of the project.