News Brief
'Highway Construction In Tamil Nadu Delayed Due To State Government': Annamalai Shares Data Supporting Gadkari's Statement In Parliament
- A few days after Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari told senior DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran in Parliament that the Tamil Nadu government that was responsible for the delay in the completion of highway works in the state, Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to Gadkari, almost repeating what Maran had said.
Annamalai and MK Stalin
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Annamalai has responded to a letter written by Chief Minister MK Stalin to Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, regarding the state of highway projects in Tamil Nadu.
Stalin had written the letter after Gadkari had told a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP, Dayanidhi Maran in Parliament that the reason for long delays in the Chennai Bangalore highway was due to the inability of the state government to provide land, clearances and construction materials like earth and aggregates on time.
In his letter, Stalin wrote that he had to visit Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupattur and Thiruvannamalai districts by train because the condition of the highways was very bad.
He also urged Gadkari to expedite work in the Sriperumbudur- Walajahpet section, saying that it was vital for connectivity between ports in the Chennai region and industrial clusters in the state.
Further, he added that it was wrong to say that the state government was not cooperating.
In his response to the issue, Annamalai said that both Maran and Stalin were ill-informed.
He listed the road projects and expansion works undertaken by the central government in Tamil Nadu under various initiatives like the Bharatmala Pariyojana and Gati Shakti and also mentioned the problems faced in some of the projects due to reasons mentioned by Gadkari.
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Was Forced To Take The Decision To Drop Projects
NHAI threatened to foreclose four highway projects in December 2021 due to a lack of support from the State govt.
One of the most important projects affected was the Rs 3000 crore East Coast Road (ECR) expansion due to a delay by the state govt to provide the No-Objection Certificate (NOC).
The project was revived as the state government finally granted the NOC after a long delay, he said.
Annamalai said that the 6-lane work in the Walajahpet-Karaipettai stretch at a cost of Rs 707.9 crore was awarded on 11 February 2019 and had to be completed on 9 February 2021.
He said that as per the work timeline of the NHAI, this project would have been completed by now if the state government had cooperated.
Stalin's Train Travel To Tenkasi Was a Luxury Trip
Annamalai said that Stalin's train travel to Tenkasi in December 2022 was actually a luxury trip because he travelled in a saloon coach, for which the journey cost would be around Rs 2 lakh.
Bharatmala Pariyojana
Excluding the Rs 7230 crore Chennai-Salem expressway against which the DMK and its allies protested while in opposition, he said that a highway length of 2414 kilometres is under development at a cost of Rs 78201 crore.
Gati Shakti Programme
Rs 5877 crore worth of projects are being executed under it with the Chennai-Maduravoyal elevated expressway being one of the most significant.
Four-Laning Of Narrow Highways
2150 kilometre of highway has been converted to four lanes with an investment of Rs 18500 crore.
