o put an end to inordinate delays, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTh) had launched ‘ Bharatmala Pariyojana’, an umbrella programme to develop key economic highway corridors in the country.
Seven years later, an audit of the programme has revealed that expansion work along the three major high-priority highways, connecting Chennai with other Tamil Nadu districts and Karnataka, are still pending.
This includes eight-lane work on Chennai Madurai highway (93 km), Chennai-Bengaluru (158 km) and new Chennai-Salem (277 km) highway projects. “No timelines were prescribed either for award or for completion of projects falling in any particular priority, rendering the priorities meaningless,” the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, released last week, said.
