On August 27, five senior employees were called to the headquarters of the company at Manesar and asked to resign. A day later, all 30-odd employees working in the quality control lab – based at Kotputli and near Manesar – were called in, ostensibly to appear for a written exam, four years after joining the company. Those who “failed” were told to quit. In January this year, another 30-35 junior level employees had been laid off. The five asked to resign this month include those handling critical “packages”, sections of the highway project.

Even as NHAI routinely extends the deadline for the 225.6km highway project, the company says it is reducing its overheads as well as undertaking re-structuring to reflect the pace of the project. PCEPL spokesman and vice-president (planning) Ajay Gupta, speaking to TOI at the company’s office in Manesar, claimed that as much as 82 per cent of the work has been completed and hence many employees were no longer required. But, seemingly unaware of the contradiction, he added that NHAI has been unable to hand over the required land for completing the project. “Only around 60 per cent of the land required for the project has been made available to us,” he told this reporter. Of the 83 structures to come up on the highway – including flyovers, pedestrian underpasses, vehicular underpasses, drains etc – only 31 have been completed and 13 more are under construction.

A company official admitted that an acute lack of funds had prompted the company to start trimming its workforce. “The 225.6km project was initially divided into six packages, with each package entrusted to a senior PCEPL employee,” says the official. Of the six package in-charges, three have been asked to resign. Two other departmental heads are also reported to be on their way out. “It’s a continuous process of re-structuring. Ultimately, please understand, it’s a project with a delay of two years…we are not going to be able to claim overheads (from the NHAI)…so we have to ensure that overheads are manageable.”

Asked if they would be able to complete the project by March 2014 – the new deadline given by NHAI – Gupta pauses for a while and then says: “March 2014 may not be possible…June may be more practical.”

The ground reality is starkly different. Those working on the project – including sub-contractors employed by PCEPL – admit that for the past three months, no work has taken place. Flyovers are lying half-completed, a point that PCEPL’s top officials concede on record. Even if work starts now in right earnest, contractors claim that at least two years will be needed to complete all the structures. But with funds reducing to a trickle, it doesn’t seem likely that work will start anytime soon. Machinery can be seen lying idle along the side of the highway. Even where land is available – a sore point with the concessionaire – work is yet to start.

“In highway construction, each equipment doesn’t cost anything less than Rs 50 lakh. If you don’t have land, this equipment will lie idle…slowly these contractors go into red. Finally, after one-two years when the land is made available, these contractors don’t have the funds to perform anymore,” says Gupta. So, old contractors have left and new ones have been brought in.

“As per our contract, our commencement date was April 2009. We were supposed to get 100 per cent of the land by June 2009. We didn’t get an inch of land,” says Gupta and yet the contractors were “pressured to mobilize quickly”. The mess is there for all to see.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/