Indo-Asian News Service, New Delhi, Jan 16: The Supreme Court Friday asked the NHAI to “beg, borrow or steal” to raise resources to complete eastern peripheral expressway on the Delhi border for stopping the heavy vehicular traffic going to western Uttar Pradesh from entering the national capital.
Making it abundantly clear that it was not going to entertain any excuses, the forest bench of Chief Justice H.L.Dattu, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel told the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to do anything but complete the eastern peripheral expressway to stop heavy vehicles going to other states from entering Delhi.
As senior counsel Indu Malhotra appearing for NHAI said that they have no funds to execute the project, the court told her, “You beg, borrow or steal the money from the central government and start the construction”.
As Malhotra urged the court to direct the road transport and highways ministry to step in to complete the project, the court told her why it should issue direction to anyone.
“You take it up with the prime minister. Why we should issue direction to government or ministry of road transport and highways,” the court told Malhotra, adding, “We had passed orders in 2005. If you want to implement it, you implement it or we know how to get our orders implemented.”
Frowning at the way the implementation of the project was being delayed for years, the court said that because of the toxic air emitting from these vehicles, children were falling sick and suffering.
The unrelenting court derided the approach of authorities seeking “one more date for commencement of work (on a project). One more date for completion of work. One more date for the extension of period for the completion of work.”
Making it clear that it was not going to entertain any more pleas for the extension of July 2015 deadline for the project’s completion, the court gave the government two weeks’ time to resolve dispute with the existing contractor.
The current contractor is seeking Rs.1,300 crore for exiting the project and the same would be paid by the new contractor, the court was told.