VASCO: Urban Development Minister Milind Naik stated that a joint meeting of three stakeholders of the ambitious port connectivity project such as National Highway Authorities of India (NHAI), PWD and the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) will be held in Goa soon. Naik disclosed this after he along with Minister for AYUSH Shripad Naik and Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar met Union Minister of State for Shipping Mansukh Mandaviya at Delhi on Friday.
According to Naik, during the meeting, they discussed the port connectivity project with the Union Minister and it was decided to convene a meeting of all officers of three stakeholders in Goa soon. He said that since the project was important for the constituents of Mormugao constituency, he had raised his concern at various platforms and also held series of meetings with the concerned officials but without any success.
The port connectivity project consisting of construction of four-lanning of NH-17-B from Varunapuri to Sada junction including elevated road-cum-flyover-cum road over bridge from Ravindra Bhavan junction, Baina to gate number 9 of the MPT including its loop connectivity ramps was started in October 2015 and was expected to be completed in January 2018. But due to some unavoidable reasons the project could not be completed and now the revised date of completion was fixed as January 2021, Naik said adding that looking at ongoing works there was every possibility that it will miss January 2021 deadline unless the concerned authorities take urgent measures to expedite the works.
Earlier, the project work was started by the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) and subsequently a tri-partite agreement was signed between the Goa government, MPT and the NHAI and the work was tendered for an estimated cost of Rs 459.76 crore and the Gammon India Ltd was awarded the tendered work for Rs 397 crore thereby saving Rs 62 crore. According to the Minister, the Goa government's component of share was limited to construction of elevated structure near Baina beach. However as the work progressed like any other mega civil projects, some of the issues cropped up based on site conditions, limitations of design criteria, unanticipated issues while preparing detailed project report (DPR) etc which were mostly not anticipated. Due to this, four major additional works had to be carried out but despite of this nothing concrete materialised till date and the important flagship project of the Goa government had come to a standstill, informed Naik. Naik further said that during the meeting with the Union Minister Mandaviya, they discussed the possibility of the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) sharing its responsibility towards construction of road over bridge-II, which according to him, was exclusively meant for their usage. He said Mandaviya assured that he would visit Goa soon along with officials of Ministry of Shipping, New Delhi and resolve all the pending issues and also address other issues concerning Goa, if any.