New Delhi / Mumbai: Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday admitted that the four-laning of the 450-km long Goa-Mumbai National Highway No. 66 is far behind schedule, with the delayed completion of just two sections in June 2020 and March 2021.

Most of the 11 sections of this NH were supposed to be completed in 2019 but they are running behind time because of various reasons like delay in land acquisition, forest and wildlife clearances, poor planning and mobilisation of contractor/concessionaire, court cases and protest from the local public, he said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha to Congress member Husain Dalwai.

The Panvel-Indapur section was to be completed way back in June 2014 but the new likely date of completion given by Gadkari is June next year, as still 23% of the work is not over.

The Arawali-Kante section was to be over by November 12 but it is now listed for completion only in March 2021, as only 14% of work is completed.

The minister also clarified that the coastal road from Revas-Redi port section in Maharashtra, known as the coastal road, is still a state road and the process of declaring it as the national highway and subsequent works on it is subjected to the finalisation of the new policy on declaration of the national highway.

In an annexure, Gadkari mentioned the slowdown in the construction of four-laning of various sections of the national highway that connects Mumbai with Goa.

The physical progress of Indapur to Vadpale section that was scheduled to be completed on December 17 this year is only 18.03%, while it is 27.90% in the case of Veer to Bhogaon Kurd section targeted to be completed on November 26 (tomorrow), 22% in cases of Parshuram Ghat-Aravali section scheduled to be over by December 3, and 14% in the case of Arawali-Kante section and 12% in the case of Knte-Waked section that were to be over by November 12.