There’s been much talk on infrastructure spending and doing away with bottlenecks. But, the story of a rail-cum-road bridge project over the Ganga in Patna signals that the ground realities of delayed implementation remain very much unchanged.
The 19-km project has been in the works for a decade. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has still to come out with cost estimates for a major portion, of 14 km, of the construction.
The project had a cost overrun of around 68 per cent till March 2009. it is to be done jointly by the railways and the ministry of road transport and highways. It was approved in 2001 with a capital requirement of Rs 624 crore but will now cost around Rs 1,048 crore and will be completed only by 2012. Both these projections are understated estimates, since the NHAI, as mentioned, has yet to make a cost estimate for 14 of the 19 km.
Structural changes in the plan,lack of coordination between the two ministries and NHAI’s delay in providing figures is causing delay. The length of the bridge in itself is around five km, while the road approaches to the bridge will require a construction of 14 km, to be done by NHAI. Till March 2009, only 28.5 per cent of the project had been implemented.
The ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi) has written to NHAI to provide the cost estimate, which would facilitate sanction of capital and thus the implementation. “Part of the delay has been due to some structural changes but now the delay is because NHAI has still not scme out with cost estimates of the approaches. We had to intervene, as this bridge is an important project and will create deflect highway and rail traffic going out of Patna (towards Hajipur),”said a Mospi official.
NHAI officials deny they are at fault. “I do not think NHAI not providing the cost estimates is causing delay in the implementation. The bridge is under construction and the foundation of approaches is being laid. The cost will, of course, be revised and will be higher, and the time of completion might extend by a year. We are preparing a detailed project report and further issues can only be sorted out after the report comes, probably in a month’s time,” said a NHAI official.
Other officials of NHAI reason that the railways should first complete the construction of the main bridge (five km) and then the question of providing cost estimates for the approaches should be taken up. “We have some issues with the Ministry of Railways and we have had made some proposals regarding land-related issues, but those will be sorted after the report is prepared,” the same source added.
