The construction of a 36 km-long tar road between Purada-Yerkad, passing through Dadpur in Kurkheda tehsil (48 km from Gadchiroli) is in jeopardy, after an arson attack by Naxals in the wee hours of Wednesday. Over 25 vehicles including trucks, the site office, and a hot mix plant worth crores of rupees were gutted in the attack. The equipment belongs to Chhattisgarh based M/s Amar Infrastructure (Pvt) Ltd, which has called back all its 100-odd employees after the incident.
Interestingly, this is the first project by M/s Amar Infrastructure (Pvt) Ltd in Maharashtra and the company has decided not to proceed with the work, without an assurance of safety from the Maharashtra government.

First project in Maharashtra

Speaking to mid-day from Chhattisgarh, Surendra Rathi, one of the directors in the company said, "We have been involved with many projects within Chhattisgarh, but our head office is located close to the Maharashtra border (two hours drive) from Mahesh Nagar, Durg, Chhattisgarh so we decided to expand our work to the border areas of Maharashtra." Accordingly, when the tender was floated for construction of the tar road connecting Purada to Yerkad, covering a total of 36 km of Maharashtra State highway running to few crores of rupees, we applied and were fortunate to get the contract, said Rathi. He added, "Our 100 employees including labourers, operators, and technical staff have been working from Dadpur area for past three months and had constructed a 10-12 km stretch, as per the plan."