NEW DELHI: The government's flagship Char Dham highway development project may get delayed by 2-3 years. More than three years after the project was launched, nearly 31% of the road network is either stuck or is yet to be bid out because of pending forest and environmental clearances.

The project to expand nearly 890 km of highway connecting Badrinath , Kedarnath , Gangotri and Yamunotri to two-and-a-half lanes was launched in December 2016 with December 2020 as the deadline. The project aims to provide all-weather connectivity to these pilgrimage centres.

Till now, only 250 km of the highway has been completed and the total progress is about 40%. Officials said while 13 out of 53 civil contract packages totalling 153 km are yet to be bid out, work has almost stopped on another five packages with a length of 122 km.

Sources said highways minister Nitin Gadkari took a review meeting recently where all issues were flagged. They added the main cause of concern was the pending reports of a Supreme Court appointed high powered committee (HPC) which was mandated to submit its report by December.

The HPC was constituted following an SC order in August after a petition was filed challenging the National Green Tribunal order okaying the project.

Officials said road transport secretary Sanjeev Ranjan has written to environment and forest secretary C K Mishra to make the HPC report available to the project implementing agencies and to facilitate clearances.

Ranjan said the HPC had conducted field visits in October and December, but the report is still awaited.

With the HPC report pending, forest clearance is not being accorded by the regional office of environment and forest ministry in Dehradun , Ranjan said in the letter to Mishra.

The highway expansion work got impacted after a petition was filed by Citizens for Green Doon in NGT in February 2018 alleging that the project was being implemented without complying with clearances.

After several hearings, the NGT disposed off the case in September 2018. But the NGO approached the SC challenging the NGT order the same month. The SC disposed off the matter in August 2019 directing to form the HPC.

While it did not put any stay on clearances of forest land diversion proposals, it said, “As far as the sites in which work has started, the HPC should recommend measures which are required for stabilising the area where hill-cutting has taken place, among others, the environmentally safe disposal of muck which has been generated so that it does not adversely affect the flora and fauna of the catchment of the river.”

