Mumbai/New Delhi: Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday assured the Rajya Sabha that the four-laning of the 438-km long Panvel-Zarap section of the Mumbai-Goa highway (NH-17) is targeted to be completed by December this year.
This section was divided into 11 packages and some of the packages were delayed due to the issues like land acquisition, utility shifting, forest clearance and inadequate mobilisation of resorces by the concessionaire/contracts.
In a written reply to Narayan Rane (BJP), the minister said this is part of the Bharatmala Project in Konkan. The only other Bharatmala project in the Konkan region is 6/8 laning of 21-km long Vadape-Thane of the NH-3 which is targeted to be completed in July 2021, he said.
In reply to Rane’s another question, the minister said five of the 30 road construction projects in the Konkan region are running as per their scheduled time while 25 others are running late. Their total length is 938.32 km.
There are five other Konkan projects where the work has not yet started, being at the tender stage at present.
