A CONCERNED CITIZEN: Highway, a thermometer of connectivity

On 17.01.2013, i got a chance to attend a conclave organised by FICCI in cooperation with ministry of Road and Highways. Mr. R P Singh, the Chairman of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) was the Chief guest and lectured a lot on the issues faced by NHAI. "No economy can sustain without the construction of roads and highways. Highways are must for the economy to achieve its goal, he asserted."

India is a country with diverse language, ethnicity and religion, yet it is united. Mr. Singh focused a lot on the problems which are being faced by the statutory body of Indian Constitution, NHAI. Land acquisition is a major challenge before the ministry of Road and Highways. As we all know, nearly 65 percent of population are directly or indirectly engaged in agricultural productivity, so it imperative on the part of central as well as state government to take care of those populations.

I was assigned to ask two questions, i.e. 1. Why infra structural giants like GMR & GVK pulled out from NHAI projects? 2. There are many projects which are in pending mode due to environmental issues, what the government is going to do in this regard? The Highly Chairman simply said, since the economy is in sluggish state these companies faced a lot in to raising the equity. He also emphasized on low traffic turn out due to slow down. About environmental clearance, he stressed that it is a subject of ministry of Environment & Forest and the state government and they are accountable for clearance delay. The NHAI can only help in it.

With the contemporary situations the NHAI has learnt many things and developed a mechanism to sort out all the issues which are creating hindrance in the completion of project on time. "State Support Agreement" is an agreement prepared by them. According to this agreement, the state government has to assist in all ways like environmental clearance, collection of toll taxes, land acquisition on time. A provision to serve notice is created, if any parties failed to deliver on time.

Collection of toll taxes is reported as a major challenge by the NHAI. in the recent past, the politically influenced personalities tried and even manhandled the tax collector in the name of people's representative. He asked to have viable and sustainable toll rates, so that viability of the projects could be maintained.

It is a well known fact that the private entities take up projects for profit maximization. So there is nothing new in leaving GMR and GVK from NHAI projects. But a question arises, is the government really serious about the development of people. If yes, then why the other vested groups do not come come all together and discuss the pertaining issues and sort it out, instead of passing a ball from one court to another.