While work on major portion of Srinagar-Jammu highway from Jammu side is complete, the four laning of 67.7 km from Srinagar-Banihal has missed another deadline with officials stating that the project would take yet another year, thus aggravating the connectivity conundrum faced by the people in Kashmir.
The four-laning project of Srinagar- Jammu Highway has been divided into six sub-projects, Jammu-Udhampur road (65 km), Chenani-Nashri tunnel (9.2 km), Ramban-Udhampur road (43 km), Banihal-Ramban road (36 km), Qazigund-Banihal road (15.25 km) and Srinagar-Banihal road (67.7 km).
While work on Jammu-Udhampur stretch has almost been completed, the completion of 4-laning of Srinagar-Banihal is facing inordinate delay which is causing lot of convenience to populace in Kashmir particularly in winter months when the road remains closed for most of the times.
The Srinagar-Jammu highway is the lone road connectivity link to Kashmir; however the inordinate delay in its completion has put question over the ability of executing agencies.
Four years ago in 2011, the NHAI awarded contract to Ramky Construction firm for the four laning of 67 odd kilometre stretch of the highway to make it all-weather road.
The NHAI at that time fixed December 2014 as deadline which the executive agency missed. Later December 2015 was fixed as deadline which the agency again missed, then the latest deadline was set for its completion on July 31, 2016 which the construction company also failed to comply with.
The NHAI and Ramky blame 2014 floods and 2016 Kashmir unrest for the delay in completion of the project.
“Unrest this year and floods in 2014 delayed the completion of the work, however now we have resumed work at various places,” said Vice-President of Ramky Infrastructure Limited, AyazHussain.
On the other hand, J&K Government’s repeated pleas to the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways and NHAI to get the project completed have fallen on deaf ears.
A senior PWD official said that the work on Srinagar-Banihal is going on at snail’s pace. “The deadline for completion of the project was July 31, 2016 and unrest started from July 9. They are just passing the buck by making lame excuses,” he said, adding that the state government has already raised this issue with the NHAI and union government.
In 2010, the project was awarded to a consortium of Ramky Infrastructure and Jiangsu Provincial Transportation Engineering Group Co Ltd.
The work on the project started on June 27, 2011 and was to be completed by June 26, 2014.
The concessionaire had to design, build, finance, operate and transfer the project on annuity basis.
The total EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) cost of the project was Rs 1600 crore as per Financial Model.
As per official estimates out of 4,087 kanals of land involved in the construction of the road, 3,588 kanals were acquired in Anantnag district and handed over to the NHAI, and in Pulwama district out of 2,554 kanals of land, 1,859 kanals were acquired for the project till last year.
