News Detail

<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">In the election year and with more complaints of &quot;poor condition&quot; of highways pouring in, the road transport ministry wants finance ministry not to reduce the allocation for road maintenance. The ministry has asked finance minister P Chidambaram to avoid reduction of &quot;non-planned&quot; expenditure since the allocation of INR 2,000 crore for upkeep of highways is inadequate.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Sources said that highways minister wrote a letter to Chidambaram since the finance ministry is reducing no-plan expenditure of all ministries by 10% in the revised estimates. They added that the ministry has mentioned how against the requirement of INR 3,000 crore for maintenance finance ministry allocated INR 2,000 crore.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">&quot;It&#39;s inadequate to take care of all roads that get damaged. We have added over 8,000 km new stretches to our National Highway network in the past two years and maintenance of all these stretches is our responsibility since states have stopped spending soon after the roads are handed over to Centre,&quot; said a senior highway ministry official.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">On the top of this, both highways ministry and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are now struggling to find fund for upkeep of about 3,000 km of NH stretches that the agencies had expected would be maintained by private developers. Though private developers had got these projects for their development and expansion and to collect toll, they have not yet taken over the works.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Senior ministry officials said that the expenditure on maintenance of such roads in Madhya Pradesh will only be around INR 100 crore. It&#39;s no less in the case of Uttar Pradesh, which also has several dilapidated highway stretches and will be poll issue in the next few months. The situation has become so worse in MP that even the state High Court has threatened to take action against NHAI officials for their failure to maintain roads.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">For the next financial year, the highways ministry wants Chidambaram to allocate at least INR 3,000 crore so that there is no dearth of fund for maintenance. &quot;When you have inadequate fund and several VIP requests some stretches will suffer. Meeting people&#39;s bare necessity of good motorable road is government&#39;s responsibility,&quot; said an official.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Source-On Request</span></span></span></p>