The failure of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to reply to a letter from Tamil Nadu’s Highways Department has forced a deadlock between the Centre and State. The result has been that seven National Highways in Tamil Nadu now continue to be in a very poor condition.
The logjam between the Ministry and the Department is over the maintenance of seven National Highways in Tamil Nadu, that have seen little or no maintenance after they were handed over to the National Highways Authority of India four years ago.
Sources in the State Highways Department say NHAI had asked it to resume charge of the seven highways in April this year. But officials had protested the bad condition of the roads and demanded that NHAI restore the highways to motorable condition before handing them back to the department.
While the seven National Highways in question measure a total of 776 km, a whopping 446 km are in a terrible condition. It would cost Rs 234.33 crore to bring these roads back to motorable state, say officials.
“The seven roads were maintained by the Department and were handed over to NHAI in good condition for development under the National Highways Development Project. No development has happened since, and the roads have not been maintained at all,” a senior Highways Department official told Express.
“Now, NHAI wants the department to take these roads back and repair them. We have given them two simple options. They either have to restore these roads to motorable condition before returning them to us, or at least pay for the repairs we undertake,” the official added.
The State Highways Department wrote a letter to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways about this matter in March this year. Having failed to receive a reply from the Ministry, the State government refused to take charge of the seven roads in April, as proposed by NHAI. The State government also then sent a reminder to the Ministry about its earlier letter in June. But there has still not been a reply from Delhi.
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