NEW DELHI, OCT 24: The 7,000 km cross-country highway project linking Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Silchar to Saurashtra, announced by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee amid much fanfare today, did not exist even on paper till yesterday.According to sources, a demand was made by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to the Ministry of Surface Transport (MoST) yesterday afternoon - "Please prepare a feasibility plan of the project by this evening. The Prime Minister wants to present it to the Union Cabinet tomorrow morning and make an announcement of the same." The ministry was also asked to include in its feasibility report the potential of private investment in the highway project.The ministry bureaucrats, preparing for the weekend ahead, were caught off guard by the sudden demand from the PMO. R. Vasudevan, Secretary in the MoST, was to leave for Mumbai in the evening for an important meeting. When he received the call from the PMO, all bureaucrats and technocrats were summoned - additional secretaryPrafulla Kumar, who is also Director General, road development, chief engineer in charge of highways and other deputies. After the initial panic, they all got down to preparing a feasibility plan of the ambitious project. ``A mostly cemented six-laned national corridor, running vertically and horizontally across the country'' - a tall order. There was nothing like this in existence in the country.Ministry sources said that it was an unfair demand from the PMO. ``How can a feasibility study of such a huge project be done within a few hours ? At present we do not even have four-laned national highways though some projects are underway. Just because a populist announcement has to be made and the cement and construction business have to be given a boost, they ask us to prepare a plan for cross-country highway at a few hours notice,'' an official in the ministry cribbed.The highway maps were brought out and consulted as the ministry officials sat pouring on them. The cross-country highway was tracked down onthe map, overlapping with some of the existing national highways. Both, the feasibility note and the map were finalised after working and re-working them only around 8 p.m. when they were sent to the PMO.The cross-country highways would meet at Bhopal with the North-South highway starting from Jammu and passing through Delhi, Agra, Bhopal and then continue downward. The East-West highway, starting at Silchar will pass through Ranchi, Calcutta, Bhopal and then continue to Somnath in Saurashtra.According to sources, the work - if it ever starts - would probably begin in the next century. The project plan has to be finalised and the land acquired. ``The land acquirement itself is such a lengthy process with the ministry having to issue notification in the official Gazette three times first to announce the intention to acquire a certain piece of land, then inviting objections and finally to announce the acquirement. It will take several years to finish this ambitious project. And that is after it starts,''an official said.
