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The difficulties highlighted by the concessionaire company in its affidavit are supply

of stone aggregate affected due to ban on mining; removal of encroachments; land

from defense authority in Jalandhar cantonment near Rama Mandi Chowk; forest land

in Haryana on the right hand side for service road; approval of design from railway;

land to locate H T Towers; relocation of toll plazas.

In January this year, gmr Infra announced its decision to terminate the country's most ambitious highway project: Six-laningof the 555-km Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad section of nh 8 at a cost ofRs.7,700 crore. The company primarily citedNHAI's failure to get the necessary environmental clearances.

Another construction major, GVK, pulled out of the Shivpuri-Dewas Expressway in Madhya Pradesh on account ofchanges in laws governing the mining of stones for road-building.

"The GMR-GVK walkout is a wake-up call," says Feedback Infra Chairman Vinayak Chatterjee. nhai Chairman R.P. Singh,however, says the GMR and GVK exits were not a consequence of regulatory hurdles but of the inability to fund projects."Arranging huge private equity is a problem as these are much bigger projects than those awarded earlier on bot (build-operate-transfer basis)," he says. Singh says private companies are over-leveraged financially and not in a position toraise the requisite equity.

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A bridge too far in Haryana

Harpreet Singh, concessionaire Soma-Isolux's project managerfor the Panipat-Jalandharhighway, admits there is aproblem as 78 of the 190 structures-flyovers, underpasses and bridges-are yet to be completed. Work had to be stopped inApril 2012 after the concessionaire's supplies of stone aggregate or coarse gravel ran dry after a March 2010 Punjab &Haryana High Court order that halted mining for stone or sand in Haryana without the mandatory environmental

sanction. Harpreet Singh says the Rs.4,500 crore venture is running losses to the tune ofRs.1,000 crore, with no solution insight.

Roadblock in Andhra Pradesh

Farmers of Gowravaram, 40 km north of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, have barricaded half the road. They are demandingbetter remuneration for the land they were forced togive up to convert a 183.62-km stretch on theKovvur-Chilkaluripet section of NH5 into a six-lane highway. Apart from better remuneration, thefarmers want an underpass through the highway.The project, slated for completion in June 2014, isunlikely to keep its deadline. Besides the blockade byvillagers, local power and water utilities also wanthigh compensations in lieu of moving their lines.

Ride to Jaipur smooth no more

The sheer ease of the unhindered drive from Delhiwas key to bolstering tourist footfalls in Jaipur in the1980s and 1990s. But now the 260-km journey ismired in dust clouds rising from dozens of half-builtflyovers and underpasses. Six-laning of the 225-kmstretch of NH 8 between Gurgaon, Kotputli andJaipur should have been up and running in

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October 2011. Work on the site stopped nearly two years ago. The revised June 2013 completion schedule is unlikely to bemet.

Jharkhand's highway of rubble

Once a favourite truck stop, Lakhveer Singh's dhaba in Asanbami, 11 km from Jamshedpur on nh 33, is now a dusty hovel.The road in front of the eatery is completely shorn of tarmac with gaping potholes and swathed in an asthmatic cloud thatkeeps away even the hungriest patrons. Among NHAI's more recent projects, work to four-lane 163.5 km between

Jamshedpur and Ranchi, awarded to Madhucon Projects Ltd in April 2011, is at a virtual standstill as the existingtwo-lane highway crumbles further with every passing day.

Though mandatory clearances from the ministry of environment and the National Wildlife Board have beenobtained, there have been disputes over compensation and the ever-looming threat from Naxalites who rule theforested countryside fringing the highway. Most private commuters have abandoned this section of nh 33, preferring thecircuitous, albeit smoother, route via Chandil. But truckers, not permitted to enter Jamshedpur from Chandil, must suffer thebumpy ride.