The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is likely to abandon the four-laning of the 80-km Muzaffarnagar-Hardwar section of the Delhi-Dehradun corridor following the Uttar Pradesh Government’s refusal to sign a State Support Agreement for a 21-km stretch that falls in the state.

In a recent communication, UP’s PWD Principal Secretary, Kapil Dev, has told NHAI that it could take up the project at its “own risk”, because the UP Government had never made any commitment, nor signed any MoU to support the project.

The communication has come to the NHAI as a bolt from the blue. Sources said the NHAI had been discussing the project with the state government for more than a year, but the state government had never indicated that it will not support the project.

In August 2008, the NHAI had even sent a draft state support agreement to the UP government. The state government had then sought information, like the name of the construction agency, the legal status of the construction agency, and had also asked NHAI to deposit Rs 6,000 as fees to inspect the legality of the proposed state support agreement.

Since then, NHAI has done much work on the project which involves four-laning of the Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar section on built, operate and transfer (BOT) basis under the National Highways Development Project (phase-III).

The detailed project report has been prepared and NHAI has even obtained the Supreme Court’s go ahead for the construction of an 8-km stretch passing through the Rajaji National Park.

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