Bombay HC will not allow Konkan coastal road project

The Bombay High Court has announced that it will not let the Maharashtra government take up new projects such as the coastal road through the three districts of Konkan if the state does not guarantee that the road-widening project of the Mumbai-Goa National Highway is completed. Additionally, HC noted the complaints of potholes on public roads and highways and urged the government to consider a state-wide policy with concrete steps to handle the recurring problem to avoid accidents and traffic jams that inconvenience regular commuters. The court recommended that the state government must consider a diversion or an alternative route to NH-66 to guarantee that the contractors can achieve the road-widening work speedily. The division bench of justice Girish Kulkarni, and chief justice Dipankar Datta, while hearing the public interest litigation listed by Chiplun resident and advocate Owais Pechkar, was notified that regular citizens have been greatly inconvenienced as the road-widening project got delayed inordinately. He further suggested that while the widening work on some portions of the highway had been achieved, the incomplete parts were causing many accidents and deaths. The accident statistics revealed that there had been over 2,400 deaths on the highway since the road-widening work had commenced. Pointing to the incomplete parts of the highway, Pechkar notified the bench that works on a stretch of 40 km, assigned to the contractor in 2017, was to be achieved by December 2022. The work was yet to begin, while another 27.5 km stretch, allocated to another contractor in 2018, had completed only 12 km. He added that the issue of commuters was worsened by potholes that have changed the national highway into a no highway. So, it was essential for the court to issue orders to the officials to guarantee that the road-widening work was done expeditiously and the pothole issue was addressed too, Pechkar argued. After hearing the submissions, the bench urged the state government as to why the parts remain incomplete even after a decade since the start of the project. HC directed that unless this project gets completed, they will hold the government to not take up any other project. Regarding the unfinished parts of the highway, the court asked the government to terminate the defaulting contractor and sought to know the number of accidents and deaths that have taken place on them. Advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni guaranteed the bench that works on road widening would pick up after the monsoon receded, and contractors who have not achieved their part would be held responsible for potholes. He added that the state government had already invited bids for certain unfinished portions, and work would be done as early as possible. Image SourceAlso read: Underwater tunnel works of Mumbai’s coastal road project delayed Also read: Odisha govt nods coastal highway project worth Rs 8,000 cr