Gadkari warns Panjab: Improve Law & Order or Lose 8 Highway Projects

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has written to the Panjab govt., raising safety concerns of its officers working in Ludhiana and Jalandhar for the construction of the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway (SDW Vol 2 Issue 29, Story 7). Following NHAI’s letter, Panjab Chief Secretary Anurag Verma has written to Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav, asking him to take necessary action for the safety of NHAI officers and contractors’ personnel. Flagging alleged attacks on engineers and contractors working in Panjab, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has communicated to Panjab CM Mann, ‘If the situation does not improve, NHAI will have no other option but to terminate eight severely affected projects with a total length of 293 km costing $1.7B. These are mainly greenfield corridors and even canceling one package will render the entire corridor useless.’ This is how an essentially land acquisition issue has been turned into a law-and-order issue and once again Panjab is being demonized. NHAI has not been able to acquire agricultural land from farmers for its projects because there is no clarity on the price of land to be paid to farmers. The District Commissioner (DC) is authorized to convert agricultural land for non-agricultural projects, such as highways. The rates of the land are called DC rates. Since the DC rates vary a lot based on distance from human settlements, the solution is to define a Base Rate for the land. Yet, successive governments in Panjab have yet to define the Base Rate. Ranking 20th in crime rates, Panjab is seen as having 'disturbed law and order.'