Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' Rs 46,000-crore pet project is facing land acquisition hurdles. The proposed super expressway will connect the state capital, Mumbai to the chief minister's constituency of Nagpur.
The nodal agency for the project, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said the joint measurement survey (JMS) for the Mumbai-Nagpur Super Expressway started on November 21 and will take at least 3 months to complete. JMS is a process to demarcate land for the purpose of acquisition.
I can only acquire this land once the demarcation process (joint measurement survey) is complete.Radheshyam Mopalwar, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, MSRDC
The target to complete the project ahead of the 2019 state elections is increasingly beginning to look uncertain. The state government is in the process of acquiring the 8,400 hectares of land for the project through the land pooling model, which was earlier successfully used by Andhra Pradesh to acquire land for its new capital Amaravati.
Under the land pooling system, landowners voluntarily sign ownership rights over to a single agency or government body. This agency develops the land by building roads and laying sewage lines and electricity connections. Once this is done, it returns a smaller portion of the land to the original owners.
MSRDC said efforts are on to convince landowners to accept the land pooling proposal. So far the agency has informally received consent for 2,000 hectares. However, without the completion of the JMS, which would take at least three months, this consent does not hold legal status. The state government is also open to an outright buy out from the farmer.
The nodal agency hopes to float tenders by February 2017 and award tenders by March 2017. It will start construction work only after 60 percent of the land has been acquired.
If the land pooling model, or the one time payment model fails to achieve results, MSRDC will explore the option of acquiring land under the Land Acquisition Act 2013.
Road development is our priority. Wherever it is difficult to acquire land that means people not partnering through land pooling or giving away their land for a one-time compensation, we will be forced to start the process of land acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act of 2013.Radheshyam Mopalwar, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, MSRDC
Acquiring land from villagers is often a challenging task as land titles are unclear and litigation is underway. MSRDC however, refused to acknowledge this as an issue.
The Blueprint
Once completed, the Mumbai-Nagpur Super Expressway is expected to reduce the travel time between the two cities to 8-10 hours from 16-18 hours currently. The time taken for freight transport from Nehru Port Trust to Nagpur, which currently takes 36-48 hours will be reduced to 12 hours. The state government has declared that the speed limit for this new road will be 150 kilometre per hour.
The 710 kilometre, eight-lane expressway will help develop 10 districts as it will hold around 20 interchanges and 22 nodes that would have IT parks, hospitals, knowledge centres, truck terminus among others, Fadnavis had said earlier. Currently the Mumbai-Nagpur is connected through a 500-600 kilometre two-lane state highway.
Ambitious Target
Analysts see the 2019 target as an ambitious one. It takes three years to complete 150-200 kilometre long highways, according to Teena Virmani, vice president of research at Kotak Securities. Constructing a 710-kilometre super expressway within the stipulated time would be challenging, she said, as issues like environmental clearances, land acquisition, rehabilitation of people affected by the project generally take a long time to resolve.
“Three years is very challenging for construction. But I believe they are breaking it down into several packages for construction purposes so that the work can start simultaneously,” Manish Agarwal of PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
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