Funding shortage for peripheral expressways in Delhi-NCR
The central government is facing shortage of funds to acquire land and to bare other expenses involved for two peripheral expressways around Delhi, namely-
1. The Western Peripheral Expressway (WPE) or Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway
2. The Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) or Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal (KGP) Expressway
The governments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh cancelled their share of funds to the central pool, which would have summed up to around Rs 1,424 crore. Earlier, the Supreme Court had appointed a monitoring committee to discuss the issues related to these upcoming expressway projects and the panel has been planned to meet on Wednesday and discuss about ways to kick start the twin projects shortly.
Sources have revealed that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has already admitted its challenges in diverting its fund to bear the land acquisition costs. The KGP e-way is being executed by the NHAI while the KMP e-way is being executed by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC). The approximate length of the expressways is around 135 km each.
The land acquisition cost along with other additional costs has amounted to Rs 2,550 crore from the initial estimate of Rs 844 crore, because of the surplus delay. In order to meet this increased fund requirement of the twin projects for the past nine years, the Delhi government will have to deposit Rs 799 crore while the Haryana government has to pay Rs 399.5 crore and the UP government should deposit Rs 226.3 crore.
The HSIIDC has raised the demand of extra release of funds for land acquisition, which have grown in right of way, utility shifting and arbitration for the KMP e-way. It has increased the demand on the basis of the change of scope of work that was incorporated once the project was granted. Apart from this, there are few cases related to the projects going on at court yet. The developer alleged that the work can be speeded up if the outstanding amount is released soon.
Earlier, the Delhi government had made it clear that, as the two states Haryana and UP would be benefited more by the projects; Delhi should not force to give more funds. The UP government, following Delhi government’s statement, had alleged that the Centre only should contribute the whole amount for the projects. However, in the last month, the government decided that it can release more funds but that needs to be capped at some level.
Sources from the road transport and highways ministry claimed that it is important to quicken up the WPE project, so that EPE can be started off by December.
While the ministry is trying to resolve the issues and complete the WPE project soon, in the meantime, a new challenge has been posed from a Planning Commission representative. The representative has questioned the need for higher toll that is charged on EPE compared to that of any other National highway, which would likely lead to a fresh debate that had earlier resulted in delay in project for months. After considering this matter, a group of ministers led by former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee decided to fix the toll charges same as that of other highways.
