The land question is becoming a major obstacle in implementing the much-desired Public Private Partnership projects (PPP), especially in West Bengal. The Planning Commission has just completed appraisal of 15 odd projects which are listed under PPP. The government of India has included the much-needed North South Corridor, the widening of National Highway 34 from Barasat to Dalkhola, in this cluster. To attract private investment in this project this has been further divided into five separate projects from Barasat to Krishnanagar, Krishnanagar to Baharamapur, Baharampur to Farakka, Farakka to Raiganj and Raiganj to Dalkhola.
The total length of the road from Barasat to Dalkhola is little less than 400 km and the total cost of the five PPP projects taken together has been estimated to be in the range of 5500 crore at roughly 14 crore per kilometre. Now that the Planning Commission has vetted it, the National Highway Authority of India will have to invite biddings from the private investors.
The project involves widening of the existing NH 34 to a four-lane road. But sources close to the concerned PPP projects point out that unless the state government provides the additional land required for the widening of the land, the project won't take off. According to the project design, the Government of India will provide 40% of the total cost as Viability Gap Funding, and the rest of the cost (60%) would be provided by the private partner. But one major rider in the project is that the state government will have to provide the land and bear the cost of rehabilitation of the evicted people from their land. As the NH 34 runs through district like North and South Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and North 24 Parganas, mostly agrarian areas, it can not avoid acquiring farm land if the project for widen the road is taken up.
But, after the recent electoral setback, the West Bengal government has already decided on a 'hands off' approach on the question of acquiring farm land for industry of public purpose. The Planning Commission is not oblivious to the development and has expressed its concern about the possible impact of it on the project. Earlier in the mid-nineties the West Bengal government tried to go for this North South Corridor project and got positive response from a major Malayasian construction concern.
The project was devised to make it a six lane road, but after considering the project for some time the state government had to abandon it when it stumbled on to the land related issue. The Land Revenue department of the state and a section of the ruling CPI(M) had put up stiff resistance to the project on the ground that it would involve acquisition of huge quantity of farm land. Though this time the project has been scaled down to making it a four-lane road instead of six-lane one, the issue of land acquisition has remained a major obstacle to its implementation. As it is the PPP initiatives throughout the country have not been able to generate sufficient interest from the private players.
As many as 132 PPP projects, mostly in power, road, railways, port, airport and urban development, are lying with the related ministries for want of private investment. The Planning Commission had done the appraisal of 60 of these proposals and sent those back to the concerned ministries. Now, after the recent budget fresh initiatives have been taken to push for the PPP projects.
