Government To Acquire Land For National Highway

July 18, 2016 11:37

State government has decided to acquire land for building a stretch of 84.317 km on NH34 between Brasat and Krishnanagar, which will be the first land acquisition by the Mamata Banerjee government, after coming in power for the second time in the state. After the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) expressed their inability to lift huge encroachment in this area, the government has decided to buy the land.

The government officials said that the project was scheduled to complete by February 2015 by the NHAI. However, they were unable to complete the stretch as off the total 197.41 hectare land, only 76.1395 hectare land could be acquired and 121.27 hectare could not be bought as it was registered as encumbrance land.

Officials said, “In North 24 parganas 28.91 hectare and in Nadai 92.35 hetre could not be acquired because of the encroachment. Though the NHAI would be constructing the rest 342 kilometers of NH34 but could not make any progress in this 84.317 km stretch because of encroachment. In a recent order, the state government asked all departments to demarcate its land and erect fences, if required, to keep encroachment at bay. The chief minister is believed to have told officials during a meeting in Alipurduar in the last week of June that she would not tolerate encroachment hurdles to development projects, an official said. The PWD department will be doing the construction work in this particular stretch after the land acquisition process is complete.”