The road transport and highways ministry has directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to speed up the process of allotting contracts for expansion of national highways to two lanes. It has asked NHAI to award contracts for at least 3,900 km highways under phase IV of National Highways Development Programme (NHDP-IV) by July this year.
Under NHDP-IV, the government envisages expansion of 20,000-km roads to two lanes with paved shoulders at a cost of nearly Rs 30,000 crore by the end of December 2015. The Union cabinet has already given approval for 5,000 km under this phase but NHAI has not been able to award even a single project, a government official told FE. However, the authority has completed feasibility studies for some 8,000 km projects, the official added.
The direction was given by road transport and highways secretary Brahm Dutt in a recent meeting with NHAI officials to expedite the pace of highway development.
Going by the ministry?s direction, NHAI is required to award nearly 50% of the projects planned for 2010-11 under NHDP-IV in the next four months. The nodal agency for allotting highway development contracts expects to award 4,086 km projects on toll, 4,645 km on annuity and just over 1,000 km on engineering, procurement and construction basis in the next fiscal.
In the two years to March 31, 2013, the authority has planned to award contracts for expanding over 10,000 km roads to two lanes. A majority of this will be bid out in 2011-12, an official in NHAI said. ?With this plan, it will not be a difficult task to implement the secretary?s direction,? the NHAI official said.
The direction assumes significance as the ministry is trying to improve the highway development in order to achieve the target of building 20-km roads by June 2010?the deadline for attaining the goal has already been postponed from March 2010. At present, the country is building 10-km highways every day. The ministry has also failed on the count of awarding 12,000-km contracts by June this year and has reduced the target to 7,000 km only.
Planning Commission, which had earlier in the financial year criticised the road ministry for setting unrealistic targets, expects the ministry would not achieve even the revised goal. It projects that NHAI, which acts on behalf of the government, will be able to award contracts for creation of only 3,794 km highways by the end of March 2010.
