Additional Chief Secretary (PWD & Revenue) Manisha Nanda today held a meeting to review the progress of constructions of Four Laning Projects of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highway in the State. She discussed and addressed all the problems, difficulties and hindrances being faced in the construction of the Highway by the stake holder departments.She said that for the acquisition of land for the construction of Kiratpur-Manali, Parwanoo-Shimla and Baddi Nalagarh Four Laning Projects an amount of about Rs.4260.00 crore was received from the NHAI and out of which about 4004.00 crore have been disbursed to the interested land owners.She said that it has been seen that umpteen complaints are being received in context of the damages to the private properties on account of construction of Highways which are situated outside R.O.W. (Right of Way) for which there has not been made any provision of paying compensation by the NHAI, in such cases the damage has to be assessed by the District Level Committee (D.L.C.) for the purpose and compensation worked out and paid to the affected persons.She emphasized that timely relief should be given to the land owners to avoid any kind of inconvenience and redress the problem in a mission mode. In context of acquisition of houses where they have been acquired partly, the grievance should be redressed by taking the consent of the house owner to acquire it completely and the case for acquiring the land which is outside the R.O.W. should be referred to the competent authority for acquisition in a special circumstances as the land remains of no use to the land owners. This kind of situation is prevailing in the vicinity of Solan town which would also be applicable elsewhere depending on the genuineness and merit of the case, she added.
While reviewing the construction of Takoli-Kullu stretch of Kiratpur-Manali Four Laning Project, where most of the work has been done, Mrs. Nanda asked the Project director NHAI Mandi to complete it before 15th July, 2019 in all respects before the onset of rainy season. Similarly the work in Parwanoo-Solan stretch of Parwanoo-Shimla Four Laning Projects should be geared up to complete it in a mission mode. She assured the NHAI authorities to provide all assistance in completing the projects in time bound manner and exhorted all the officers present in the meeting to work in coordination and work as a team to complete the task of construction of Highways which will go a long way to enhance the pace of development in the State.She said that in order to disburse the compensation to the land owners who have not turned up to receive the compensation in spite of notices. She emphasized on holding “Camps” at appropriate places in coordination with District Administration, stake holders and local representatives of concerned Panchayati Raj Institutes to complete the task of disbursement of compensation.Engineer-in-Chief PWD R.K. Verma, Chief Engineer, National Highways Bhawan Kumar Sharma, Project Director, Mandi, Shimla, SDMs of Solan and Shimla, Land acquisition Officers and other senior officers of department were present among others in the meeting.