UP-Uttarakhand feud holds up work at NHAI’s Delhi-Dehradun project

The NHAI had sent a proposal to the UP government in April this year,asking it to hand over this land for the road-widening project. But the UP government says it cannot give away the land till the dispute over ownership was resolved.

Prem Kumar Singh,Engineer-in-Chief,UP Irrigation Department,said: “The Nainital High Court has recently issued an order that ownership of disputed land will remain with Uttarakhand government. The UP government has decided to move a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against the order.”

NHAI Project Director,Dehra-dun,M K Jain,said: “The NHAI has received 20 bids for the project but cannot award a contract till the land is under dispute.” He added,“The dispute between the governments is going to delay the widening of this highway that was in the interest of both the states,” he added.

Jain said the Delhi-Dehradun stretch has to be widened to four-lanes at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) Phase-III,a programme funded by Government of India. Jain is also looking after the 21-km stretch of this corridor falling in UP.

The project is proposed to be executed on Built-Operate and Transfer basis and once the contract is awarded,the contractor will have to complete it in three years. Jain said that if project was delayed for long time,cost of project will increase and the NHAI will have to invite fresh tenders for it.

State irrigation department officials said the dispute on land between UP and Uttarakhand government goes back to 2000,when the hill state was carved out. A number of properties of the state Agriculture department then became part of Uttarakhand.