ROURKELA: Protesting slow pace of construction of the dedicated coal corridor of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) in Sundargarh’s Hemgir block, villagers on Tuesday staged a 12-hour road blockade at Bankibahal demanding immediate resumption of work and completion of the project at the earliest.
Construction of the project has been stopped mid-way since the last six months with the Works department yet to take a final call on the need for additional work of Rs 56 crore. The MCL has funded the entire project cost of Rs 398.96 crore. The Works department is executing the work.
Construction of the coal corridor with a total length 30.811 km including four-lane for 8.484 km from Bankibahal and the rest two-lane till Behdabahal is underway since 2020. The project envisages to reduce suffering of around 2.8 lakh villagers of Hemgir, Lefripada, Tangarpali, Balishankara and Sadar blocks from pollution and accident hazards due to daily movement of about 2,000 coal-carrying heavy transport vehicles.
Reliable sources said last year, MCL had requested for a deviation in the project with concrete road instead of bitumen for around seven km stretch which witnesses maximum movement of heavy vehicles. While MCL granted additional fund of around Rs 56 crore for the purpose, the Works department has not taken a final decision on it yet.
Former Sundargarh MLA and senior BJD leader Yogesh Singh said the contract firm stopped work six months back as it did not receive running bills after the issue of project deviation cropped up.
Singh said on Tuesday, he met Works department secretary VV Yadav informed him that separate tender would be floated for the additional concrete work. Stating that the new tender would further delay the project, the BJD leader demanded immediate completion of the coal corridor to provide relief to villagers.
Superintending engineer of Road and Building (R&B) Division, Sundargarh Narayan Patel said 10 bridges on the alignment are ready and the last one is also nearing completion. Significant progress has been achieved on the road portion. In view of the additional concrete work, the completion target has further been extended to March 2024 from December 2023.