Little headway in road works

Three World Bank-aided road projects are running much behind the schedule due to incompetence of the executing agencies. The World Bank had sanctioned loan for widening and strengthening of three roads - Berhampur to Taptapani, Bhawanipatna to Khariar and Chandbali-Bhadrak-Anandapur under the Orissa State Road Project (OSRP). All the three projects commenced works in February 2009 and the scheduled date of completion was August 2011. However, the progress of the three projects is very negligible. The progress of Berhampur-Taptapani road project remains far from satisfactory. The 41-km stretch of road from Berhampur to Taptapani was awarded to Backbone-ARSS joint venture company at an estimated cost of ` 81.97 crore. The cumulative progress of the project was less than 22 per cent till the 2011-end.This came to the notice of the World Bank team during their recent visit to the State. The team expressed serious concern over the inordinate delay in the completion of the project.

Source: IBNLive