Hon. Speaker Sir, today, I am here to
speak on the Demand for Grant under the control of the Ministry of
Road Transport and Highways. It is a very important subject. It
is not a subject which can be neglected. I fail to understand why there
is so much escalation. Already, there is an amount of Rs. 65,000 crore, and
you are asking for more. What was the work done in the previous year?
How many kilometres of new roads are you going to construct this year? This
kind of clarity is not there in your statement. To achieve 5 trillion-dollar
economy, this road network plays a very important role. I would like to say
that the Treasury Benches are120
very proud in claiming themselves as the second largest in the world in
terms of road coverage by covering140
(1) 63 lakh kilometres of roads. This is the second largest in
the world. There is no doubt about it. The United States of
America stands first. Now, I would like to raise one more important point.
You cannot construct a road overnight. It was the foundation of
the successive Congress Governments. Our Government had laid a strong
foundation, and that is why, India is the second largest in terms
of coverage of road networks, covering 63 lakh kilometres. According to your
data, Germany is number one. It is not my data. The United States of
America is number 14.240 We
are standing at number 44 out of 160 countries. There is no independent
evaluation of the road quality. Look at the quality of the roads. It is
pathetic but the amount of money being spent is huge.280 It is no way near the expectation
of the common (2) man.
At this point of time, I
would like to mention one more important thing. What is the road
safety that we are having? The expenditure on road safety is only two
per cent of the total budget. On the other hand, the United States of
America is spending six per cent of its budget on road safety. Due to these
things, a number of fatalities and road accidents are360 taking place. The speed of vehicles has
increased; the number of vehicles has increased. The quality of roads is very
poor. With no safety and precautionary measures being taken, we are
losing a lot of valuable lives. So, these things have to be considered
very seriously by this Government.
Sir, the unfortunate thing
is that in my own Parliamentary Constituency,420 one particular road is being laid for
more than 10 years. The contractor says he is not able to work as there
is so much of cost escalation. As I (3) said earlier,
why is so much of money being given? There is no clarity. There is no White
Paper. Finally, do you know what the contractors do? They go into480 arbitration and they manage to get
the award and demand Rs.100 crore or Rs. 200 crore from the National Highways
Authority of India. Instead of collecting penalty from the contractors, the National
Highways Authority of India is paying them. So, in this House, I request
the hon. Minister to come up with a White Paper on how many projects
are being stalled like that, how many contractors are being paid the
arbitration fee, and in how many projects the560
contractors have been changed. In my constituency, there is one overbridge
project. The feasibility report and everything of the project is
complete. Till now, we do not know where the Project Director is. They
are not responding in time. When600
we approach them, they tell us some stories, and the (4) project remains
incomplete till date. Due to this, many accidents have taken place.
Sir, India lives in
villages. The minimum requirement for a road to be a village road is
that its width should be at least 7.5 meters. But the width of our village
roads is not more than 5.5 meters. That is why, in my constituency,
there are about 10 districts and there is zero proposal for construction of
village roads. Sir, I would like to raise some of the very important
issues pertaining700 to the National
Highway project which is going on in my State. The pace of the work
is very slow720 and it will
be extremely difficult to complete such an important project on
time. During a recent visit to my Parliamentary Constituency, local
people raised many grievances and demands with respect to this construction work
which I would like to present in this august House. The construction work
led to (5) change in the orientation of National Highway in
many parts of the stretch, and therefore, the local roads have been
completely disconnected from the National Highway due to which the general
people are suffering a lot. Their accessibility has been hampered.
The other major issue is the compensation provided for land acquisition to the
affected parties. Roads are the lifeline in the hills, but the National Highway
projects across the840 State
have brought misery to thousands of people who have been uprooted from
their places and have lost their livelihood. For compensation, only the circle
rate has been taken into consideration and not the market rate. Other factors
like commercial viability and productivity have not been taken into
account while working out the compensation.
Roads remain the main mode
of transport in my State as there is no air connectivity or rail line as
such. So, people of my State depend on the roads. Hence, this should
be given priority. (6) The geography of my State presents constant
challenge to the development of transport infrastructure. Nevertheless,
the State has made significant progress in road connectivity in the last few
decades, thanks960 to the
Congress Governments. However, frequent traffic jams and blockades due
to National Highway construction work have impacted the tourism980 badly. Indiscriminate cutting of
hills for road projects has become a bane of tourism industry in my State.
The occupancy in hotels which was about 70 per cent before the work started,
has come down to 20 per cent. Stakeholders were not taken into
confidence before planning and execution of these projects. No alternative
routes have been carved out. Even the existing routes are not maintained
properly.
Sir, I happened to meet the
hon. Minister when he sanctioned a by-pass road in my constituency. Due
to some technical issues, the work has not started as yet. I request the hon.1080 Minister to get the work started
immediately. Besides, the laying (7) of roads should be taken up as the
highest priority. It plays a pivotal role in the growth trajectory of the
country. At the same time, the road safety measures1120 should be taken up on a double priority
by this Government. When you happen to see the death toll and the
accident rate, you will find that almost 11 per cent of the world
accidents are happening in our country. So, the Government should
seriously think on the road safety measures. At the same time, the
Government has to look into the standards of the vehicles, and see
whether the Motor Vehicles Act is being implemented properly or not. The1200 Government has to monitor its
implementation continuously. My main point is that the number of roads has
apparently increased in the past decade. At the same time, the
number of vehicles has also increased beyond the number of roads. When it comes
to violation of rules, let me put one (8) thing on record for the
sake of youths of the1260
country. We are all educated and many of us violate traffic rules. Strict
laws have to be formulated by the Government of India and the Ministry to
curtail the accident rate. I would like to make one suggestion here. The insurance
premium may be linked with traffic violations. The insurance premium should
be much higher for severe traffic violations. For lesser traffic violations,
the insurance premium should be incentivised. Why can the Government not
plan it in such a way? There are some officers who are below the
standard. I mentioned right now in this House about the dreadful
junctions and the accidents happening there. Who is responsible for
those accidents and who is responsible for the people who are killed brutally
in the road accidents?
Sir, the National
Highways Authority of India needs to prioritise its maintenance work on1400 (9) war footing for the benefit
of public at large. Adequate steps should be taken to grant compensation
for land acquisition as per the existing market rates. The Government may be
directed to increase the pace of work so that the project is completed well
within the time limit and directions may be given for proper maintenance and
regular repairing of the roads to facilitate the commuters. There should be
proper debris management so as to preserve the environment and ecology.
Public amenities should be developed along the roads to facilitate the
commuters and tourists and to provide livelihood and generate employment for
the local people. Adequate relief should be provided to the households who
have been affected due to land acquisition and road construction work.
These are some of the major issues. I would request the Government to take
notice (10) of these issues and the work should be done at a faster pace
so that it is completed very soon.
