Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has reportedly requested the Nagaland Government to come up with a State Law within a couple of months to help resolve the land issues or the Ministry would be compelled to de-scope the portion where there are land issues and the National Highway would be compelled to hand over and converted to State Government (NPWD).

Gadkari also reportedly said that MoRTH is sincerely working to build good roads all over the country but if land is not made available there is little that they can do for development of the roads. He said this at a meeting held at Hotel Radisson Blu in Guwahati on 30th October 2023 to review National Highway projects in the Northeast States which was attended by Nagaland Deputy Chief Minister T R Zeliang. Union Minister of State General V K Singh (Retd.) was also present at the meeting.

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During the meeting, Zeliang is said to have briefed Gadkari that the major issue faced by the implementing agency and the contractors of ongoing National Highway projects in Nagaland was due to the unique land holding system where the State Government has limited role to intervene on the matter. He informed the Union Minister that Nagaland Government is vigorously working on framing State Land Laws which will help ease the problems faced at the moment.

The Deputy Chief Minister also raised the issue of rockfall within the Pakala Pahar stretch on NH-29 and Managing Director, NHIDCL has assured that they are working on awarding work for protection and safety measures outside the present scope of work on that package. Further he urged upon the Union Minister to expedite for completion of all the packages of the 4-lane road Dimapur-Kohima as it has been delayed for so many years.

Zeliang also requested the Union Minister to help expedite for sanction of the road projects under Central Road Infrastructure Fund (CRIF) scheme. Due to Nagaland’s high Bank of Sanction (BoS) of 10.40 against permissible BoS of 4.00, the Ministry had expressed inability to sanction/approve new projects. However, the State had taken serious measures to maximize fund utilization and foreclosing projects which are not progressing owing to various reasons and have managed to bring down the BoS to 5.28 from the July 2023 figure of 10.40.

Zeliang was accompanied by Commissioner & Secretary Kesonyü Yhome, IAS, Arenla Jamir, Secretary, Chief Engineer NH (NPWD), Tiameren, Superintending Engineer Aroba and other NH (NPWD) Engineers.