The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which failed in meeting the target of inviting bids for 60 highways projects worth Rs 65,000 crore by December this year, is still groping for bidders for the projects who have turned away from the tendering process as they do not find the projects viable.

This is exemplified by the fact that less than half of the projects for which bids were opened on Friday could not generate investors? interest. Of the ten bids opened for financial bidding, only four projects could find takers, while the remaining six have been deferred by a week?s time.

The projects that have generated investor interest are the six laning of the Rs 1,489 crore Krishnagiri-Walahjpet project and the Rs 1,916.75 crore Varanasi?Aurangabad project and four lane elevated road from Chennai Port to Maduravoyal at a cost of around Rs 1,530 crore.

As per the sources close to the development, Reliance, Isolux Soma, and GMR are vying for the Krishnagiri-Walahjpet project, while the contract for the other two have been awarded to Isolux-Soma.

Speaking on the fate of the balance six projects that could not generate investor interest and the reason behind it, a top NHAI official said, ?We have deferred the projects that did not get any bidders by a week. The bidders may not have considered the projects viable enough and that is why they have not put in the financial bids.?

Incidentally, last week also NHAI got bidders only in three projects out of seven bids that were opened. The projects in this case also have been deferred according to the NHAI official.

Extension of bids seems to have become the order of the day at NHAI. The authority, which was supposed to invite bids for 44 projects under National Highways Development Programme, phase III by December this year, has extended 18 of them till February next year.

However, highways builders feel that only deferring the projects will not solve the problem. ?Deferring the projects is not the solution. The government should not have first of all kept so many projects on the block. Rather it should have come out with lesser number of projects and tried to make them attractive for the bidders,? said M Murali, director general, National Highways Builders Federation.

?The main issue is of the viability of the projects. As the government?s move to increase the project cost to make the projects viable has not shown desired results, the costs should be revised further to make the projects viable. Or the concession period could be increased to make the projects attractive,? said Murali.

NHAI recently revised the cost of all the projects for which the detailed project report was done at 2007 prices by 10% and the projects before that by 20%. This covered all the projects currently undergoing the tendering process.

•Of the ten bids opened for financial bidding, only four projects could find takers

• The remaining six have been deferred by a week?s time

• The projects that have generated investor interest are the six-laning of the Rs 1,489-crore Krishnagiri-Walahjpet project, Rs 1,916.75-crore Varanasi?Aurangabad project and the four-lane elevated road projects from Chennai port to Maduravoyal at a cost of around Rs 1,530 crore