Central government ready to build KMP Expressway: Ministers

Union ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gujjar Friday said the central government was ready to take charge of building the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Defence, Planning, Statistics and Programme Implementation Rao Inderjit Singh and Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Krishan Pal Gujjar were reviewing the expressway along with union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari.

The two said they will meet Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda within a month and give a proposal that if the state government is unable to complete the expressway, it should terminate the contract and hand over the project to the central government.

The ministers said the only work the Hooda government has done in the past nine years of its tenure is issuing change of land use (CLU) certificates to builders but had done nothing on the infrastructure front.

They added the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is ready to construct the KMP Expressway.

The construction of the 135.6-km-long expressway (official name Western Peripheral Expressway) started in 2007 and it was to become operational by July 29, 2009 at a cost of Rs.17.6 billion. However, the construction by the contractor, Darshan Singh Construction Company (DSC), has been very tardy.

The DSC had assured the Haryana government in October 2010 that the 53-km-long Manesar-Palwal stretch would be finished by March 2011. But, it has also not been opened for traffic.

Work had been completed only on a 48-km section by August 2012 and after that the construction work had stopped.

Sub-contractors have reportedly been left without payments.