ROURKELA: The highly damaged stretch of National Highway (NH)-143 between Rajamunda in Sundargarh district and Deogarh’s Barkote continues to be a nightmare for commuters for over two decades.
The latest efforts to upgrade the 49.99 km stretch have failed with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) contractor Gayatri Projects Ltd (GPL) reportedly facing major financial issues and stopping work for around a year. While the NHAI’s next course of action is unknown, there seems to be no end to the sufferings of commuters on the busy route.
Sources said the NH portion continues to languish in neglect even as work on two other packages for rehabilitation and up-gradation of the rest 76.41 km stretch of NH-143 from Birmitrapur to Rourkela and Rourkela to Rajamunda is now nearing completion.
In 2005-06, the improvement of a total stretch of 126 km of NH 143 (old NH-23) from Birmitrapur to Barkote was approved and included in the National Highway Development Project (NHDP)-IV. After a long delay, Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd signed an agreement with the NHAI in 2010 and formed a subsidiary Birmitrapur-Barkote Highway Pvt Ltd to take up the project on a design, build, finance, operate, and transfer (DBFOT) basis.
Gammon was supposed to four-lane the 76.41 km stretch from Birmitrapur to Rajamunda via Rourkela at a cost of `778.6 crores while the Rajamunda-Barkote section was earmarked for a two-lane. After starting work in 2011, Gammon abruptly quit the project in 2014 without any progress citing financial constraints and delays in land acquisition.
Subsequently, the NHAI modified the detailed project report with reduced NH 143 width, but in July 2015, Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari instructed to four-lane the entire 126 km stretch. Finally, the NHAI divided the NH-143 development project into three separate packages, and the Rajamunda-Barkote section with an estimated cost of `641.44 crores for 49.99 km was awarded to the GPL on January 16 2018. Since then, hardly 20 per cent of work could be completed and the damaged road stretch has further gone from bad to worse.
Reliable sources informed that GPL is facing a financial crisis and despite NHAI’s prodding, the contractor failed to show progress. In June 2021, the NHAI declared GPL a ‘non-performer’. After termination of the contract agreement with GPL, the fresh tender would be floated.
Rourkela Tipper Owners’ Association advisor Bijay Pradhan said the Rajamunda-Barkote section has been damaged since 2000 and occasional patch work on the NH does not even last for a month.