Centre prod to cut Bengal road fee

Pranesh Sarkar, TT, Jan 23, 2018, Calcutta: The Centre has asked the Mamata Banerjee government to cut down supervision charges for utility shifting required to widen and upgrade highways after the state requested Delhi to bring some pending projects under the Bharatmala scheme to develop roads across the country.

The ministry of roads, transport and highways (Morth) has written to Bengal chief secretary Malay De, seeking necessary steps to cut down the supervision charges to 2.5 per cent of the cost incurred for utility shifting. The state government at present takes 10 to 15 per cent of the cost incurred on shifting underground utilities like waterlines, electric lines and electric poles as supervision charge.

"The power department and the public health engineering department claim the charges, while the Centre bears the cost of shifting. It is often a handsome amount. But at the same time, if the state gets some roads included in the Bharatmala project, the Bengal government can save at least Rs 15,000 crore. There is little doubt that we will have to agree to the central condition," said a senior government official.

The Bharatmala project was approved by the Union cabinet on October 25. A sum of Rs 5.35 lakh crore could be required for the project under which around 34,800km of roads would be taken up in the first phase. Bharatmala includes economic corridors of around 9,000km.

The state wants to push some of its major projects into the Bharatmala scheme that includes the 300km North-South Corridor (which will connect NH34 in Moregram and NH6 in Mechogram) and the 300km Jangipur-Ghojadanga road.

"Besides, some other roads in north and south Bengal could be brought under the scheme. If all the projects were taken up under the Bharatmala, the state can be spared of spending Rs 15,000 crore for developing roads," said a senior official.

Sources at Nabanna said utility shifting was required when a road is upgraded or widened. Primarily water pipelines laid or electricity poles erected along the road need to be shifted. The cost of the utility shifting usually comes around 30 per cent of the project cost.

"If a road widening project costs Rs 1,000 crore, the cost of utility shifting comes around Rs 300 crore. The Bengal government charges around 15 per cent of the Rs 300 crore that is Rs 45 crore as supervision fee," an engineer said.

The Union ministry wrote to the chief secretary that it didn't feel that such a handsome amount was required for mere supervision of the work and wanted the fee to be slashed to 2.5 per cent.