Seventy two national highway projects are delayed mainly due to land acquisition problems and other issues, the government today said.
"A total of 72 highway projects are delayed due to various reasons including acquisition of land," Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Krishanpal Gurjar told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Gurjar said 12 projects are stuck in Assam, 11 in Tamil Nadu and nine in Bihar.
Five projects each are stuck in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
"Several measures have been introduced to facilitate timely completion of land acquisition including simplification of procedure for issuing notification of acquisition of land," he said.
The steps include facilities to project implementation units and competent authorities, constitution of high powered committees under chief secretaries of states and setting up of dedicated land acquisition units, he added.
Also, state level coordinators have been appointed for land acquisition.
Last month, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that no highway projects would be bid out without 80 per cent land acquisition.
Blaming the previous UPA regime for award of projects "without acquiring even 10 per cent of the required land" and causing hardships for road sector, Gadkari had said that "a shelf of 300 projects are being created with all regulatory clearances to be bid out in next five to ten years".
