GQ deadline extended by one year

Its official now. The deadline for completion of the first phase of the government's ambitious Rs 58,000 crore National Highways Development Project (NHDP) has been extended by one full year.

In an internal assessment, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has revised the target for completion of the 5,846 km Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) portion of the NHDP to December 2005 as against the previous deadline of December 2004.

The GQ portion was originally set for completion in December 2003 but was later revised to December 2004 after the ministry encountered problems of law and order and lack of cooperation by some states for land acquisition.

Even by its revised deadline of December 2004, only around 85 per cent of the multilaning of national highways would be achieved, as per the ministry's latest estimates. A total of 17 contracts, totalling 865 km, is set to spill over into 2005. There are at least 5 contracts which are expected to be completed only by December 2005.

The NHDP, announced in 1998, was the most ambitious initiative of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The government had cited the progress of the project as one of its major success stories.

Of the 5,846 km GQ project, involving four-laning of highways connecting the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, 1,408 km of highways have been multi-laned so far.

It is about 24 per cent of the total length of the GQ. By the end of December 2003, four-laning and upgradation in 2,314 km is expected to be completed, which would be around 40 per cent of the total length of the GQ.

In the case of the second phase of the NHDP, comprising the 7,300 km north-south corridor that is to link Srinagar to Kanyakumari and the east-west corridor joining Silchar and Porbandar, work has been completed in 557 km (about 7.6 per cent of total work).

This portion of the project is slated for completion in 2007.