NHAI terminates Haldia port connectivity contract

New Delhi, Apr 30 (UNI) The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has terminated a joint venture of two companies from India and China for the four-laning of Haldia port connectivity project due to ''long delay'' and ''poor performance''.

The contract for four-laning of a 53-km stretch on the National Highway-41, providing connectivity to Haldia port in West Bengal, was awarded to China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corporation (CNWRHEC) and Harish Chandra India Ltd (HCIL) in July 2002.

The project, involving an expenditure of Rs 273 crore, was originally scheduled to be completed in March 2005.

Subsequently, the two companies were granted extension twice till August last year.

''When the project was reviewed at the top level in February this year, it was found that only 41.2 per cent of the work was completed, forcing NHAI to terminate the contract,'' NHAI sources told UNI.

The monthly progress on the project was 0.8 per cent, and at this rate, it would have taken eight years to complete the work, the sources pointed out.

Earlier in January, the NHAI had terminated contracts of Essar-UEM combine for constructing two crucial stretches of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) between Mumbai and Chennai due to long delay in their completion.

Another project that was then terminated was that of UP State Bridge Corporation to construct the Tapi river bridge near Surat in Gujarat.

The two terminated contracts of Essar were Chitradurga-Harihar (covering a length of 77 km) and Harihar-Haveri link (covering a length of 56 km). Both of these projects are in Karnataka.

Work on the Chitradurga-Harihar project started in March 2002, but only 71 per cent of it was completed as on December 31, 2006.

As per the original deadline, it was to be completed by August 2004 at a cost of Rs 265 crore.

The other project, where the work started in March 2002, was also to be completed in August 2004, at an expenditure of Rs 201 crore, but only 69 per cent of the work was completed by the end of 2006.

NHAI has been drawing flak for the delay in completing the GQ, which is now expected to be complete by 2008-09.

UNI