The Hindu : Pvt. role likely in maintenance of MDRs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 17, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Pvt. role likely in maintenance of MDRs

By Our Staff Correspondent

GULBARGA June 16. The Chief Minister, S.M.Krishna, has agreed in principle to extend the policy of allowing private participation in maintenance of major district roads (MDRs) after a similar experiment with regard to State highways proved successful.

Disclosing this to presspersons here today, the Public Works Minister, Dharam Singh, said the State Government would require about Rs. 700 crore for handing over the maintenance of 28,000 km. of MDRs, and he had apprised the Chief Minister about the benefits of allowing private participation in their maintenance.

The Chief Minister had agreed in principle to sanction it and asked the Public Works Department to provide full details of the proposals and the estimated cost, he said.

Mr. Singh said Mr. Krishna had convened a meeting of senior officials of the department on Monday to discuss the proposals to allow private participation in maintenance of MDRs and other proposals mooted by the department for a final decision, but due to unavoidable reasons the meeting had been postponed.

As soon as the final approval was received, the department would work out details with financial agencies on funding the project.

In a major decision, the HUDCO had decided to reduce the rate of interest for road development projects from 12.5 per cent to 8.5 per cent with retrospective effect, he said and added that this would go a long way in reducing the loan burden of the State.

To a question, Mr. Singh said private management of State highways had been a success with 80 per cent of the work progressing satisfactorily. The minor hitches were being tackled firmly and the erring contractors were being dealt with severely. Mr. Singh said the State Government had taken up resurfacing of the 5,000 km. of State highways, and resurfacing of 3,300 km. had already been completed in a record time under different programmes. Of the Rs. 205-crore assistance availed from the HUDCO for maintenance of the more than 5,000 km. of State highways by allowing private participation, the department had incurred an expenditure of Rs. 164 crore.

He admitted that private maintenance of State highways in parts of Gulbarga District and in Yadgir and Sedam taluk was progressing slowly and action had been initiated to speed up the work.

Referring to the World Bank aided major maintenance and upgradation work taken up on the Bidar-Srirangapatna State Highway, Mr. Singh said that work was in full swing in the Mysore sector, and work in the Bidar sector was expected to begin in few days.

The main hitch in starting the work was the delay in giving clearance certificates by the World Bank consultants to the material used for upgrading the roads in the Bidar sector.

"Men and machinery have already arrived, and the contractor has set up a modern laboratory at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore for quality checking near Ferozabad in Gulbarga District," he said.

Pending the actual beginning of work, Mr. Singh said that he had taken up with the World Bank officials to relax the conditions in the agreement to provide assistance to take up pothole filling in the badly damaged section between Bidar to Hattigudur in Gulbarga District. "The work of filling potholes has been completed now."

Mr. Singh told a questioner that the ring road work in Gulbarga city would be inaugurated in a week. Initially, the road laying and widening would be taken up from Aland Road to TV station, where the alignment had been finalised.

He said that as part of the programme to replace old bridges, the Karnataka Road Development Corporation had already completed the construction of nearly 140 new bridges, and the State Government proposed to take up replacement of some more old bridges on important roads.

Mr. Singh declined to respond to a question on the proposed "zero performance convention" in Jewargi arranged by his detractors to "highlight" his failure to usher in development in Jewargi taluk.

"People of my constituency are better judges," was all he said.

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Pvt. role likely in maintenance of MDRs