Land will return to owner if no road work starts in 5 years: Kamal Nath

People,he said,were reluctant to sell land because there had been instances in the past of state industrial development corporations acquiring land and selling it fifteen years later at ten times the price for industrial parks and special economic zones.

He said he had told state governments that if land acquisition was not completed within a specified period,road projects would be abandoned citing the state’s lack of interest and need.

“The reason for this is that the settlement officer responsible for the acquisition is a state government official. Most chief ministers were not aware of the problems when I approached them,” he said.

The NHAI has been facing land acquisition problems,leading to delays in execution of road projects in the past few years. This was despite some inherent advantages to owners for selling land to the NHAI for highway development.

“The process of land acquisition in the NHAI Act enables us to pay much better compensation and there is an attraction. The other advantage is that prices of adjoining stretches go up due to highway development,” Kamal Nath said.

To meet his target of building 7,000 km of roads ever year and 20,000 km as work-in-progress,he has decided to keep the pressure on the NHAI,contractors and state-level authorities.

According to NHAI’s own statistics,the Government could acquire only two-third of land for the North South and East West corridor project last year. Maharashtra,Bihar and Punjab proved to be rather difficult — land acquisition was less than ten per cent complete in some areas.