Polls put road project back on track

November 25, 2013

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SHIMLA: A road that passes through the apple heartland of Himachal and was a sensitive poll issue during assembly polls last year is still far from completion. While the previous BJP regime failed to ensure its completion, now, keeping in view the 2014 polls, Congress government in the state has fixed a deadline of December 15 next year to complete the road project.

The 80km road project, which has now become a bone of contention between BJP and Congress, was approved over five years ago. The project was awarded to Chinese government backed Longijian Road and Bridge Company on February 22, 2008, and was slated to be completed by June 4, 2011. After the Chinese firm sought an extension, the previous BJP government set fresh deadline of June 20, 2013, but even after this the project remained incomplete. As the company failed to meet deadline, the government finally cancelled the contract.

Sources said that the state government in February this year had sent fresh tender documents to World Bank. In the revised documents, a proposal was made to complete the project in two phases. Sources said the first phase was of 48km stretch from Theog to Kharapathar, while the second phase was for a 32km stretch from Kharapathar to Rohru.

Officials said a fresh contract agreement was signed with an Indian construction company on November 19 this year. “Codal formalities of both phases have been done and the company has been asked to mobilize resources by the first week of December,” said an official.

According to officials, the entire work would take around 30 months to complete. “Efforts are on to complete the project by December 2015,” officials added. The project cost has been worked out at Rs 323 crore.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com