C & C Constructions Ltd. starts its work for widening and strengthening of the road at Kharapather.
State Highway 10 that passes through the apple heartland of Himachal and was a sensitive poll issue during assembly polls last year is still far from completion. While the previous BJP regime failed to ensure its completion, now Congress government in the state has fixed a deadline of December 15, 2015 to complete the road project.
The 80km road project, which has now become a bone of contention between BJP and Congress, was approved over five years ago. The project was awarded to Chinese government backed Longjian Road and Bridge Limited Company on February 22, 2008, and was slated to be completed by June 4, 2011. After the Chinese firm sought an extension, the previous BJP government set fresh deadline of June 20, 2012, but even after this the project remained incomplete. As the company failed to meet deadline, the government finally cancelled the contract.
State government in February 2013, had sent fresh tender documents to World Bank. In the revised documents, a proposal was made to complete the project in two phases. The first phase was of 48km stretch from Theog to Kharapathar, while the second phase was for a 32km stretch from Kharapathar to Rohru.
Fresh contract agreement was signed between project director Naresh Sharma and Director of C & C Constructions Ltd. R. N. Aggrawal in the presence of Andrew Vogle, independent contract supervision consultant for the World Bank-funded project in Shimla on November 19, 2013.
According to officials, the entire work would take around 30 months to complete. "Efforts are on to complete the project by December 2015," officials added. The project cost has been worked out at Rs 323 crore.
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