Gogoi hits out at Gadkari

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today criticised Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for allegedly lowering the size of contracts to Rs 50 crore for the state PWD.
"Assam has made a significant progress in development and improvement of national highway network under Ministry of Road Transport and Highways since 2005," the CM said.
"However, introduction of new EPC mode of contract and creation of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited have slowed down the progress considerably," he said.
The Chief Minister said though the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister has assured that the Centre would award most of the schemes to contractors from the north east, it has on the contrary limited the scope of work executed by the state PWD to Rs 50 crore.

"The limit for other states is Rs 100 crore, while for Assam it has been drastically reduced to Rs 50 crore.
"This is totally against the spirit of cooperative federalism reportedly being promoted by Hon'ble Prime Minister.

"This policy has also hampered the progress of development of National Highways in the state," Gogoi said in a letter to Gadkari today.
He urged the union minister to entrust state PWD with projects up to Rs 100 crore as is the practice in other states and construction work more than Rs 50 crore through EPC mode of contract and work up to Rs 50 crore executed on the basis of time proven item rate tender system.

Gogoi, while expressing apprehension over the ministry's 'modified' policies for implementation of highway projects, said it would have an adverse impact on the maintenance and development of highways in the state.
He said various works have been clubbed into one job to artificially inflate the project cost so as to take it out of the ambit of execution by the state PWD.