Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government plans to build an expressway to connect Kashmir to Kanyakumari. While speaking at the Aaj Tak G20 Summit event, he said that the government was the expressway to connect Kashmir to Kanyakumari will be built via an access control road.
He also added that the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is likely to be completed by January or February next year.
Speaking at the event, Gadkari also mentioned an audit report on the “huge funding mismanagement” on the Dwarka Expressway project. He said that it was a “gross misrepresentation.”
Recently, a political row erupted over the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report which flagged the high cost of construction of the Dwarka Expressway.
According to the report, the expressway, which spans 29.06 kilometers, is being built at an exorbitant cost of Rs 250.77 crore per kilometer, exceeding the Rs 18.2 crore per kilometer that was sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
Rubbishing the charges, Gadkari said that the expressway was not 29 kilometres-long as mentioned in the CAG report but around 230 kilometres-long, as it had tunnels included in it as well.
He further said as per the above calculation Rs 9.5 crore was being spent per kilometre. Gadkari claimed that he told the same to the CAG officials, and they were “convinced” by the clarification. However, he said, they still went ahead with the report.
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Earlier the ministry sources had said that in the absence of an adequate response from the ministry and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), the CAG adopted an incorrect methodology for computing the cost of Dwarka Expressway.
Gadkari too conveyed his displeasure with the lopsided attitude adopted by certain officials responsible for responding to queries raised by the CAG with regard to the cost of construction of the Dwarka Expressway at a high-level review meeting on Thursday.
The ministry said that the CAG has simply divided the total cost of construction of Rs 91,000 crore (expenditure) under National Corridor Efficiency Programme with the project’s entire length of 5,000 kilometres under development.
They said the CAG has itself noted that the cost of construction of Rs 18.2 per kilometre does not include the cost norms for flyovers, ring roads, etc.
They were of the view that the expressway in question has elevated roads, underpasses, tunnels and other components which were not part of the project.
The cost of Rs 91,000 crore for 5,000 km under the Bharatmala Phase-I project was finalised by the ministry on August 10, 2016, for the year 2016-17 to the extent possible.
The ministry sources had claimed that the government saved over 12 per cent in construction cost against estimates in awarding contracts for the expressway.
According to reports, the CAG had found that the NHAI decision to go for an elevated carriageway on the Haryana portion of the Dwarka Expressway pushed up the construction cost to Rs 251 crore per kilometre from Rs 18.2 crore per km estimated earlier.
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