Chandigarh, April 5- Haryana Government today warned the Concessionaire of the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway, who is delaying completion of this prestigious project that if he does not perform, the Government would not hesitate to invoke action as per terms of Concession Agreement.
The Haryana Chief Secretary, Mrs Urvashi Gulati who presided over a meeting of the High Powered Committee on Expressway here today to review the progress of Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway project and discuss various issues of the project pertaining to different Departments, she expressed her annoyance on the continued slow progress of work of the project.While observing that there has been shifting of completion targets time and again by the Concessionaire despite the fact that the said targets in the earlier various review meetings were proposed by the Concessionaire themselves, the Concessionaire was asked to give a firm commitment to complete the project.
On issues put forward by the Concessionaire as reasons for the slow progress of the project like change of scope orders, forest clearance at two or three locations, shifting of electrical lines and acquisition of some pockets of land, the Chief Secretary desired that a Sub Committee of Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Industries and Managing Director,HSIIDC might get the said issues resolved. The Managing Director of HSIIDC clarified the position on all these issues and it was also made clear that the Concessionaire is trying to shift focus of non-performance on the petty issues.
The Concessionaire requested that after assessing the ground realities and meeting of the Sub Committee he would be able to give realistic targets for completion of Manesar-Palwal Section and whole of the Expressway.
The meeting was attended by Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretaries or Heads of Departments of Forest, Public Works (B&R) Department, Finance, Power, Tourism, Irrigation, Industries, Town and Country Planning, Environment and National Highway Authority of India and officers of HSIIDC, Independent Consultant and M/s Span Consultants Pvy. Ltd. and Concessionaire.