Reports suggest that National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is open for an out-of-court settlement on the issue of de-linking environment clearances from forest if the environment ministry agrees.
In a petition filed at the Supreme Court, NHAI called for delinking of environment approval from forest clearance to hasten highway development.
It is learnt that over 20 highway projects are stuck owing to the linking of two clearances. These projects, which had already been recommended for environmental clearance last year, are stuck because forest or tree cutting clearances had not come through. Construction work can now begin on these stretches only if forest clearance is given.
It is worth noting that recently, GMR InfrastructureÂ’s terminated the contract to widen the Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway because of delay in environment clearance.
With the Environment MinistryÂ’s nod, NHAI can issue the commercial operations date letter to GMR with the requisite clearance, in effect allowing the infrastructure major to start collecting toll revenue.
GMR has moved the Delhi High Court to prevent NHAI from encashing the Rs 269-crore bank guarantee for the project.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.