??|?? November 8, 2012 ?? 08:24am ??|
KOLKATA: Another damp squib for the Mamata Banerjee government. State urban development minister Firhad Hakim?s over-ambitious announcement of building a 100-km-long flyover, apparently the longest in the world, from Garia to Bongaon proves to be dud now.
The minister?s dream is shattered as the project has been put on hold indefinitely, owing to land acquisition problems, poor financial health of the state and muted growth in the manufacturing sector.
On Tuesday, Hakim told TOI, ?This was a big project that we wanted to do but poor financial health of our state and lukewarm growth in the manufacturing sector have played a spoilsport. Getting adequate land also became a hurdle.?
The minister had announced the project in March this year and the department had asked a wing of engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to do a survey and submit a detailed report for this project. In March, he had estimated the project to be worth more than Rs 1,000 crore, but experts had indicated a different figure.
According to their calculation, it would cost anything between Rs 70 crore and Rs 100 crore to build every kilometre of such a flyover. Going by that, the proposed project?s cost comes to a range of Rs 7,000 crore ? Rs 10,000 crore.
Availability of huge tract of land for such a blockbuster project was always a matter of concern for the Bengal government as chief minister Mamata Banerjee continues to maintain a hands-off policy on land acquisitions.
Hakim stressed on the fact that the state government?s earnings have not been very promising. ?We can only think of reviving it if we are financially stable,? he said.
The urban development department had planned that the project would be self-financed through collection of toll taxes. It had also meant that the state never searched hard enough to rope in a private investor, which according to sector experts, is necessary in big projects.
Had it been realized, the project could have changed the face of the state government as it would have reduced traffic snarls along this stretch. A huge number of trucks ply on a daily basis from Bongaon to various parts of Kolkata and the southern fringes.
So far, Bengal figures out nowhere on the national map alongside Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Surat that have the country?s best flyovers. According to experts, the current move will make the state remain far behind on infrastructural growth front compared to other states.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/100km-dream-flyover-project-put-on-hold/articleshow/17136048.cms
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