The Golden Quadrilateral Road Project, launched in 2000-01 by the National Democratic Alliance government, would be completed by end of December as only five per cent of the work remains to be completed, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways K H Muniyappa said on Friday.
As much as 95 per cent of the ambitious project, involving 5,846 km, had been completed at a cost of around Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion), he told reporters in Bangalore.
Muniyappa said work on only 250 km -- in parts of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar -- remains to be completed and the delay is mainly because of litigations, he added.
"NDA government had said it would complete the project in 2004, but it could not even complete 45 per cent of the work.We have taken up work in double-fast speed in the last two years," he said.
Muniyappa hastened to add that he does not want to be critical of the previous NDA government with regard to the project, adding, it had done well by starting it. The system is such that delay cannot be avoided.
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