Nagpur: Denotifying the state and national highways within city limits to save liquor bars and wine shops from the wrath of Supreme Court, will cost Nagpur Municipal Corporation dearly! Sources said that it will be impossible for the cash starved NMC to bear the additional cost of over Rs 3000 crore to incurred in maintaining these highways once they are denotified.
Large number of these flyovers are being built by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). NMC has already proposed that the highways passing through their city limits be denotified and handed over to the respective councils.
But the financial situation of NMC is too pathetic to do so.
NMC is already executing cement road works worth Rs 700 crore. Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) had to contribute a part of this money as the corporation did not have sufficient funds. It is unable to pay salaries to staffers on time. Under such conditions, bearing a burden of Rs 3,200 crore will be next to impossible for NMC.
NHAI is building two flyovers and one railway overbridge (ROB) inside city limits. Two more flyovers are being built on its behalf by Mahametro. In addition, two more flyovers are in the pipeline and another two are being considered. NHAI also plans to concretize the road from Zero Mile to Khapri. The cash-strapped Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) will have to take over all these projects if the national highways within city limits are denotified. The total cost of these projects runs is Rs 3,238 crore, and this doesn’t even include the projects under consideration.
As per NHAI’s norms, it could do construction work only on roads that are notified as national highways. “We cannot work on any municipal roads. The stretch from Indora Square to Pachpaoli and Agrasen Square to Ashok Square was notified as national highway and hence we are constructing flyovers on them,” he said.
NHAI has already begun work on the 7-km long Pardi flyover, which costs Rs 665 crore. Soil testing of the Y-shaped flyover originating from Liberty Talkies to Mental Hospital Square, costing Rs 245 crore, has also begun. NHAI’s contractor has started the survey for the Rs 72-crore second railway overbridge at Khapri.
The road agency is also planning to build a flyover from Indora Square to Pachpaoli at the cost of Rs 213 crore and from Agrasen Square to Ashok Square for Rs 243 crore. Flyovers from RTO to University Campus (Rs 200 crore) and from Mayo Hospital to Satranjipura (Rs 300 crore) are also under consideration.
Mahametro is building two flyovers for NHAI. Work on the T-shaped flyover costing about Rs 500 crore on Wardha Road has already started. Another one also costing about Rs 500 crore will be constructed on Kamptee Road. In addition, NHAI plans to concretize the road from Zero Mile to Khapri at the cost of Rs 300 crore after Metro work is complete.
