new delhi the nhai is in a bind after kerala chief minister pinayari vijayan flagged national highway nh projects in the state have been put on hold by the centre citing prioritisation of viable works sensing this could become a bigger political issue in the poll season with other nonnda states raising it nhai on thursday amended its circular which had put only 4500 km of nh works in the high1 priority listthe nhai had issued policy guidelines to all its offices across the country on may 2 directing them not to proceed with land acquisition in respect of high2 priority projects the nhai circular detailing the priority list had left out some of the nh stretches in kerala which have been approved as a part of bharatmala project vijayan had said the move was politically motivated a total of 8000 km has been put under high2addressing mediapersons at bjp headquarters on thursday union highways minister nitin gadkari said the nhai circular has been cancelled he said the cost of land acquisition is very high in kerala and high density along highways were some of the problems for highway development in the statethe kerala chief minister and i sat together and decided that whatever the cost for the development of the state we would have to do it this priority1 and priority2 is wrong news all the bharatmala projects are underway and detailed project reports will be made there will be no injustice towards kerala gadkari saidsoon after gadkaris announcement nhai issued a clarification to the may 2 guideline and said the high1 list are to be taken up on priority however it is not to be construed that the projects in high2 list are dropped the projects in high2 list may be continued after seeking specific approval of nhai hq by providing the status of land acquisition as on may 2 2019 and traffic on these projectsnhai officials said they are caught between devil and the deep sea as the budgetary allocation is inadequate to meet the fund requirement for building more highways toi on april 26 had first reported that finance ministry and niti aayog had asked nhai to get their priorities right and focus on building highways where they are needed more instead of taking up projects randomlywe have the mandate to implement 24800 km under bharatmala and another 10000 km under nh development programme the cost of bharatmala has increased from rs 55 lakh crore to almost rs 9 lakh crore mainly due to elscalation in land acquisition cost if we dont get the required fund how can we build more and if we put less financially viable projects under priority list2 then it becomes a political issue said an official who did not wish to be namedso going by the criteria set by nhai only thalapadychengala and the chengalaneeleswaram stretches in kasaragod district in kerala come under the high1 category and the rest has been kept in high2 list