Semi-ring road projects stuck owing to lack of money, land

JUNAID SIDIQ

SRINAGAR: Even though government cleared over 1,600 languishing projects for funding worth more than Rs 3,600 Crores in a little over three months, the semi-ring road projects in Srinagar and Jammu cities are still stuck at various level due to lack of money and land.

In 2017, the Government of India sanctioned Rs 4,300 Crore for two ring road projects in Jammu and Kashmir. While an amount of Rs 2,100 Crore was at that time sanctioned for the Srinagar two- four-lane semi-ring road project, Rs 2,200 Crore were sanctioned for the Jammu semi-ring road project.

On February 28 this year, Rs 939 crore for semi-ring road project in Srinagar was allotted to M/S RAMKY Infrastructure Ltd. Later in the month of May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his visit to Jammu and Kashmir laid the foundation stone for the project. However, more than seven months have passed and the work is yet to begin.

An official said the state needs Rs 759 crore more to purchase land for the semi-ring road projects in Srinagar and Jammu cities as the farmers were not willing to sell land at the prices offered by the government.

About 12,450 kanals of land is to be acquired for the roads, of which 10,911 kanals are agricultural land.
On October this year, farmers affected due to government acquiring land for ring road had appealed Governor Satya Pal Malik to issue an ordinance enabling the affected farmers to get fair compensation for their land which is being acquired for construction of the new highway.

A total of 11,528 farmers would be affected due to the construction of the ring roads around Jammu and Srinagar.

The Jammu project involves the construction of a 57 km semi-ring road while the Srinagar project involves the construction of a 60 km semi-ring road.

In Srinagar, the long semi-ring road would take off at Gallandar in Pampore and culminating at Manigam in Ganderbal.

In Jammu, the ring road would start near Vijaypur (Raipur) and meet the highway at Akhnoor from where it will go up to the Nagrota bypass.

Apart from the semi-ring road project, an official said over two dozen projects each worth Rs 1,000 crore or more, taken up under the Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) three years ago are stuck at various stages.

The detailed project reports have been submitted in few projects of the 13 road and tunnel projects.
For completion of projects, Anantnag district requires Rs 200 crore, while Baramulla district needs Rs 104 crore for completion of the projects.

“There has been hardly any progress in these projects,” official said.

As per the figures, at least 2,300 development projects in Jammu and Kashmir are lying incomplete for the want of funding.

A number of these projects had started way back in 1990s.

Ever since its inception during Governor’s rule, the High-Powered Committee (HPC) constituted for the task has cleared 1644 languishing projects requiring a cumulative investment of Rs 3,631.36 Crore, in its five meetings held so far.

To expedite the completion of the projects, the state government on September 5 set up J&K Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) for spending up to Rs 8,000 crore on completing unfinished infrastructure projects.