Gandhinagar: Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday said Gujarat’s model for facilitating land acquisition for national highway projects has the potential to become a template for the rest of the country, as he reviewed the progress of key road infrastructure projects with the state govt.According to an official statement, Gadkari appreciated the state’s approach to land acquisition and highlighted that the system could serve as an example for other states undertaking large-scale highway development.Chief minister Bhupendra Patel, who attended the review meeting, said effective coordination among various govt departments has helped accelerate land acquisition and other preparatory work for road infrastructure projects. He also urged the Union minister to expedite construction of the Palanpur-Samakhiali corridor, a key highway project in north Gujarat.The state govt informed the minister that it has put in place a standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent land speculation and illegal real estate transactions along proposed road alignments. Under the mechanism, district collectors are empowered to temporarily withhold non-agricultural (NA) permissions in villages falling within the Detailed Project Report (DPR) alignment until the acquisition process is completed.The meeting reviewed the status of several ongoing and proposed national highway projects, including the six-laning of NH-48 between Vadodara and Mumbai, the Samakhiali-Maliya section of the Morbi-Samakhiali road, the Rajkot-Gondal-Jetpur highway, the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway, the Ahmedabad-Godhra-Indore road, the Jamnagar-Amritsar Expressway, the Palanpur-Samakhiali corridor and the Ahmedabad-Shamlaji six-lane project.Gadkari also declared that work on extending the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway up to Bhavnagar would begin within the next three months. He directed the Gujarat govt to promptly submit proposals under the Central Road Infrastructure Fund (CRIF) to the Union ministry for faster approval and implementation.Emphasising sustainable infrastructure development, the Union minister said trees affected by highway expansion should be transplanted to suitable locations along the same corridor wherever feasible, ensuring environmental conservation alongside road development.
