The Centre has awarded three projects worth Rs 2,150 crore over 215 km on a revenue sharing model basis. This comes as a great relief for the mega highway projects, which have seen a lot of policy-related controversies in awarding of the projects. It has also braved the vagaries of interest rate spiral coupled with the overall economic slowdown. The 60-km Gonde-Nashik-Pimpalgaon stretch worth Rs 752 crore, 97-km MP-Maharashtra border Dhule project costing Rs 675 crore, and 58-km Kishangarh-Beawar worth Rs 724 crore have been awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The development is significant as it indicates the highway development sector?s resilience amid the prevailing economic slowdown. ?The very fact that the projects have been taken up on a revenue-sharing model by the private players, indicates the viability of the projects. We are getting the bidders for them even in the current economic scenario,? said a top NHAI official, without disclosing the name of the bidders who have bagged the projects.
In case of the Gonde-Nashik-Pimpalgaon project, the concessionaire will start sharing the revenue almost four years before beginning the commercial operation of the project. In case of revenue being shared before the commencement of commercial operations, the initial percentage of sharing will be number of days divided by 365 plus 2%. An additional 1% will be added in the initial rate every subsequent year. With the concessionaire committed to share the revenue before 1,530 days of beginning of operation in this project, the government?s initial share in the revenue will be at 6.2%, which will subsequently go up by 1% every year.
In the other two projects, the revenue will be shared after the commencement of the commercial operations. While in the Kishangarh-Beawar stretch, the revenues will be shared after six months of beginning commercial operations and in the MP-Maharashtra border Dhule stretch the concessionaire will start sharing the revenue after almost eight years of operations. In this case the revenue will be calculated at 2% for the first year and additional 1% in the subsequent years.
The projects are a part of the National Highways Development Programme, phase III. These projects were put on the block for bidding by NHAI in September this year.