Way paved for Ghaziabad expressway
April 17, 2008
GHAZIABAD/GREATER Noida: The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has finally decided to complete work on a number of roads, including the 12-kilometre expressway linking Greater Noida to NH-24 in Ghaziabad.
While 10.5 kilometres of the 12-kilometre expressway having been completed five years ago, a 1.5-kilometre stretch on NH-24 had been encroached upon. Now, GDA vice-chairman SK Dwivedi said compensation and alternative plots of land will provided to residents along the route to clear the area in order to complete the expressway.
Meanwhile, the GDA has decided to go ahead with plans to build a six-lane expressway linking the Hindon bridge at Meerut Road and the Greater Noida-Ghaziabad expressway. The GDA and NHAI have already decided to widen NH 24 from UP Gate to Lal Kuan.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
DR. KARUNANIDHI TO INAUGURATE FOUR NHAI PROJECTS IN CHENNAI
April 4, 2008
DR. KARUNANIDHI TO INAUGURATE FOUR NHAI PROJECTS IN CHENNAI. ALSO TO LAY FOUNDATION STONE FOR FOOT OVER BRIDGE AT CHROMEPET
The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Dr. Kalaignar M., Karunanidhi will inaugurate four projects completed at a total cost of Rs. 80 crore by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Wednesday the 9th April 2008. He will also lay the foundation stone for Foot-over Bridge at Chromepet on the same day.
The function for the inaugural ceremony would be presided over by the Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Thiru T. R. Baalu and the Minister for Local Administration, Government of Tamil Nadu Thiru M.K Stalin would be the Chief Guest. The Guests of honour of the function would be Thiru M.P. Swaminathan, Minister for Highways, Government of Tamil Nadu and Thiru T.M. Anbarasan, Minister for Labour, Government of Tamil Nadu.
The Irumbuliyur Underpass has been built at a cost of Rs. four crore, four-laning of Chennai Bypass Phase-I up to Porur has been completed by NHAI at a cost of Rs. 70 crore, the pedestrian subway at Tirisulam has cost Rs. five crore and the Bus Shelter at Chromepet built under the MPLAD Scheme has cost Rs. 82 lakhs. The completion of the Irumbuliyur Underpass will facilitate right turn for the Tambaram Traffic to access Chennai Bypass and thereby quicker connectivity to the Golden Quadrilateral Corridor.
The Chromepet Foot-over Bridge for which the foundation stone will be laid on Wednesday to facilitate the commuters in crossing NH-45 to access the railway station on the other side and vice versa which provides rail connectivity to southern part of Tamil Nadu, would cost Rs. 2.40 crore.
Thiru T.R. Baalu has expressed the hope that with the completion of these four projects, the people living in and around these areas would be greatly benefited.
Source: pib.nic.in
New bypass proposed for Mangalore city
April 3, 2008
MANGALORE March 18: The State Government has sent a proposal to the Union Government to construct a 91.2 km four-lane bypass from Mulki to Thokkottu via Kateel, Bajpe, Polali, B.C. Road, Panemangalore, Mudipu and Mangalore University.The proposed bypass is expected to not only provide better connectivity between Udupi and Bangalore but also to fuel the growth of the city outskirts as it may attract more Information Technology-based companies.This proposal is aimed at easing the traffic congestion on national highway 17 between Mulki and Thokkottu (near Mangalore) and national highway 48 between Mangalore and B.C. Road, sources told The Hindu.The project involves conversion of stretches of different State highways from Mulki to B. C. Road covering a distance of 58 km via Kinnigoli, Kateel, Bajpe, Kaikamba and Polali. The second stretch of 5.2 km length is from B.C. Road to Panemangalore on NH 48. The third stretch of 27 km is the major district road (MDR) between Panemangalore and Thokkottu via Mudipu and Mangalore University.The proposal, sent through the State Public Works Department, is before the Union Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, sources said.N. Gokulram, chairman, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Delhi, visited Mangalore on March 14 to assess the feasibility of this project and took stock of the four-lane work between Surathkal and B.C. Road.Mr. Gokulram held discussions with Deputy Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao, authorities of Mangalore City Corporation, Mangalore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and Mangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (MESCOM) and NHAI.On the utility of the bypass, sources said that the area between Thokkottu and Mudipu on Thokkottu-Panemangalore road had emerged as education hub of Mangalore. Besides Mangalore University, one engineering college, three medical colleges and associated hospitals, two dental colleges have come up on this road. A prominent Information Technology company has opened its second unit in Mangalore near Mudipu. When this road becomes a four-lane stretch, more IT companies, colleges and industries are likely to set up their establishments in the region. This is likely to create more direct and indirect employment opportunities. The real estate business in this region is set to boom, probably making the purchase of property in the region unaffordable to common man, sources said.When the State highways such as number 70, 67 and 101 were developed, the area between B.C. Road and Mulki via Kaikamba, Bajpe could witness many developments. This road would pass by the airport as it would be within five km from the proposed new terminal building of the airport, the sources said.This road will serve as a ring road covering Mulki, Mangalore, Thokkottu, Panemangalore, B.C.Road, Polali and Bajpe.The Udupi-bound traffic from Bangalore will be able to divert at B.C. Road and reach Mulki via Bajpe and vice versa. Then, Mangalore city will have to bear with traffic plying between Kerala and Udupi, according to sources. Source: http://mangalorean.com
Update on NHAI expressways projects
April 3, 2008
It is reported that, with access controlled expressways attracting massive investments, ministry of road transport & highways has decided to conduct the feasibility study for more such expressways and construction companies eyeing the access controlled expressway projects of National Highways Authority of India are likely to get investment opportunities for at least 4 such projects spread over 495 kilometer over the next few months. They are1) 70 kilometer Chandikhol Jagatpur Bhubaneswar – INR 761 crore2) 47 kilometer long Delhi Hapur – INR 474 crore3) 198 kilometer long Vijayawada Elluru Rajamundri – INR 1,602 crore4) 180 kilometer long Delhi Agra highway – INR 1,918 croreThe feasibility reports for these projects are already completed and the work is likely to be awarded in about 6 months. These projects are for widening the current 4 lane highways into 6 lanes and operating them for certain durations. Companies would have to bid competitively for these projects on a revenue sharing basis. Thus companies would have to bid on the extent of toll revenue that they are ready to share with the Government if they are allowed to operate the roads. Since these highways are already 4 lane stretches, the road operators can start toll collection even during the project construction phase from an appointed date, mutually decided by NHAI and the road operator. The toll revenues will be routed to an escrow account.Recently, NHAI has awarded 4 such mega projects of 882 kilometer length, which are likely to cost an estimated INR 10,912 crore. From the NHAI perspective, these projects have emerged as money spinners, with companies willing to foot the entire construction cost and part with 2% to 48.06% of their revenues in the initial leg of the project. At the end of the concession period, which is about 12 to 15 years duration, the winning firms have agreed to part with 12% to 59% share of toll revenues.The feasibility reports for another 10 projects of similar nature are under preparation. They are1) 315 kilometer long Kishangarh Udaipur stretch – INR 2,205 crore2) 235 kilometer long Udaipur Ahmedabad – INR 1,645 crore3) 190 kilometer long Varanasi Aurangabad – INR 1,330 crore4) 184 kilometer long Nellore Chilkaluripet – INR 1,288 crore5) 148 kilometer long Krishnagiri Walajapet – INR 1,036 crore6) 145 kilometer long Pune Satara – INR 1,015 crore7) 85 kilometer long Ludhiana Chandigarh – INR 595 crore8) 80 kilometer long Belgaum Dharwad – INR 560 crore9) 56 kilometer long Samakhiali Gandhidham – INR 392 crore10) 55 kilometer long Indore Dewas – INR 385 croreThe ministry has also decided to conduct the feasibility study for 4 such expressways between Delhi and Meerut, Chennai and Bangalore, Vadodara and Mumbai and Dhanbad and Kolkata. Source: http://steelguru.com
SA’s Intertoll barred from NH projects
March 27, 2008
NEW DELHI: After Chinese, Malaysian and Korean firms, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has blacklisted South Africa’s infrastructure firm Intertoll for undertaking road sector projects in the country. Intertoll-led joint venture Intertoll-ICS-Cessons O&M, which had bagged the contract to operate and manage Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch (206 km), has been barred from carrying out any highway project in the country for the next 10 years. “The company has failed to comply with the obligation. It was also found that there was leakage in toll collection. After shooting off showcause notices five times to the firm we have now barred them for the next 10 years for undertaking any project directly or indirectly,” a government official told ET. Last year, the government had put nine firms including Lanco Construction and Essar group in the non-performers’ list. Foreign contractors in the list included Korea’s You-One Engineering Construction, Saudi Arabia’s Sticco, China Coal Construction Group Corporation and Moscow-based Centrodostroy. Four Malaysian companies — UEM Builders, Dolomite Industries, Pati SDN Bhd, and Bhumihighway — were also in the list of non-performers. All highway contractors were blacklisted on account of delay in completing highway projects and poor performance. The dispute between joint venture partners also lead to delay in the projects.“Before we bar any contract we give multiple chances to perform. In case of Intertoll we gave them three years’ time to comply with the contractual obligation,” the official said. Intertoll got the Rs 169-crore contract through competitive bidding to operate, manage and collect toll on the Gurgaon-Jaipur highway for eight years. Foreign infrastructure companies are, however, betting big on the country’s road sector. Recently, these firms won three highway projects out of five offered by NHAI under national highways development project (NHDP)-V. All the three companies — Emirate Trading Agency, Isolux Corsan Group and IJM Corp — which bagged various projects roped in an Indian firm. Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
FOUR-LANING OF PATNA-HAJIPUR-MUZAFFARPUR SECTION
March 20, 2008
4 laning of Patna-Muzaffarpur section of NH 19 & 77 has been included under NHDP Phase III in the State of Bihar on BOT (Toll) mode. Bids for 4 laning of Patna-Muzaffarpur Section of NH 19 & 77 were invited in June 2005 under old Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for which no response was received. Bids were again invited for the second time in June 2007 on the basis of new MCA with the last date of submission of bid as 20.08.2007. But, no response was received this time also. As there is no response of bidders on toll based BOT bid for the project stretch, Government has accorded approval for changing the mode of upgradation of Patna-Muzaffarpur Section of NH 19 & 77 from BOT (Toll ) to BOT ( Annuity). This information was given by the Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Shri K.H. Muniyappa in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today. Source: http://pib.nic.in
DELHI-JAIPUR EXPRESSWAY
March 20, 2008
The Government had announced 1,000 km of expressway along the corridors of Vadodara-Mumbai (400 km) and six others from which the balance 600 km were to be selected. Delhi-Jaipur was one such corridor. Further decision for Delhi-Jaipur expressway is yet to be taken. However, Delhi-Jaipur section has been approved for six laning and the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) concession for the project has been awarded in February, 2008 under National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase-V. This information was given by the Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Shri K.H. Muniyappa in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today. Source: http://pib.nic.in
Annuity model for Bihar, Jharkhand BOT projects
March 18, 2008
NHAI has not been able to award any project on build-operate-transfer basis via tolling in the states in last two years
New Delhi: Desperate to get the roads programme off the ground in Bihar and Jharkhand, where the private sector is declining all offers—including on lucrative stretches—in view of the challenge from Leftist extremist groups, the Centre is offering investors guaranteed payments instead of recovering their investment by collecting toll revenues. A senior official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the regulator for highways, who did not wish to be identified, said, “The reason for this (investor disinterest) is partly law and order situation in these states, and Naxalism.” As a result, NHAI has not been able to award a single build-operate-transfer (BOT) highway project through tolling in these states in the last two years. In such highway projects, the company awarded the contract for constructing a stretch of highway collects toll from those using the highway.
Law and order, and Naxalism scare away bidders, who recover their investment from highway tolls
To woo investors towards these highway stretches, NHAI is now planning to recast these BOT projects on an annuity basis, wherein contractors who are awarded projects would be paid a guaranteed amount in instalments. The authority had carved out around 11 highway sections in Bihar for awarding under the BOT mode in 2006 under phase III of the National Highway Development Programme. NHAI first put up its most lucrative stretch, Patna–Muzaffarpur, for bidding in early 2006, but it received no response. “We then tried putting up another stretch for bidding as well, but even then the companies did not show any interest,” said the NHAI official. The authority has faced a similar problem in Jharkhand, where it did not receive any bids for a couple of tolled road projects. The lack of interest in tolling projects in Bihar and Jharkhand is happening at a time when NHAI has made it a policy to gravitate towards BOT projects in order to reduce the government’s investment in the highway sector. Another official in NHAI, who also did not wish to be identified, confirmed that the highways regulator now planned to redraft the proposal for these projects under annuity terms. Members of Parliament from the two states said concerns over viability of the projects apart, private players were hesitant to take up contracts in these areas because they feared for the security of their staff. Bhubaneswar Prasad Mehta, a Lok Sabha member of the Communist Party of India from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, said even as some tenders were floated last year, there was little response from the private agencies. “Infrastructure development cannot happen in a vacuum,” he said. “Why should anyone risk his life in an area where there is no rule of law and little security? We are planning to raise this issue yet again in our party’s three-day state conference in Ranchi, which begins on 15 March.” However, Nikhil Kumar, a former special secretary for internal security in the Union ministry of home affairs, and a Lok Sabha member of the Congress party from Aurangabad in Bihar, said the situation was somewhat better in his constituency. “I can say for my constituency that though the quality of work remains a matter of concern, wherever we have managed to provide sufficient security to the contractors, with the help of the state government, there has been some progress,” said Kumar. “If the political representatives from these two states, and other areas affected by Naxalism keep pursuing the matter with the state governments and the private executing agencies, we can get the work done. In my constituency alone, about 25 link roads will be constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (Prime Minister’s Village Road Programme) and work is set to begin. Earlier, between 2004 and 2007, seven other roads were completed in my constituency,” he added. Ram Deo Bhandary, a Rajya Sabha member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal from Bihar, said it was quite clear that even a few high-profile incidents of violent crime could deter developmental activities.
NHAI likely to issue contracts for 10,000km of highways soon
March 16, 2008
These contracts will be a part of phase III and phase V of the government’s highway project New Delhi: The United Progressive Alliance government wants to award, in the next few months, contracts to build up to 10,000km of national highways, equal to almost 70% the 14,500km of national highways on which similar contracts have been issued since 2000.Long Road Ahead (Graphic)The decision to award the contracts, worth at least Rs70,000 crore, comes with the general election likely to be held either late this year or early in 2009, although an official at the agency that regulates the highways sector in India claimed that this was because procedural issues related to the contracts had now been “ironed out”.The official at the National Highways Authority of India, or NHAI, added that since 2000, when the country’s National Highways Development Programme or NHDP was launched, the regulator had awarded contracts for the construction of 14,500km of highways worth around Rs80,000 crore and that work on 8,500km had been completed.The contracts that will be issued are part of phase III and phase V of NHDP and involve upgrading existing national highways into four-lane and six-lane ones. Five of the seven phases of NHDP involve upgrading existing highways.The stretches will first be offered to private companies to be developed under the ‘build-operate-transfer’ model where the companies will build the highways, operate them and collect toll for a certain period of time, and transfer them to the government at the end of a certain period of time called the concession period. In case this fails to draw bids, the projects will be offered on the ‘engineering-procurement-construction’ method, where private companies build the roads for a stipulated fee but will not have any stake in the project.“Detailed project reports are being created for these stretches and they are expected to be awarded in the next few months,” said a senior government official, who did not wish to be identified. “There was a lull in award of projects because the policy was being ironed out. But now that things are falling into place, you will see more and more projects on offer,” the official added.For almost a year, NHAI has gone slow in awarding projects.“Till now we were waiting for ironing out procedural issues such as preparation of the new model concession agreement and setting up a two-stage bidding process. Those matters have been taken care of now. And now the only serious impediment in the way of awarding these contracts is clearing of the toll policy,” said an NHAI official.The toll policy is to be cleared by the law ministry and this could take a couple of months, the official added.Analysts however said that while the agency was capable of awarding 8,000km of construction a year, exactly how much would get done depends on a number of factors including a legal challenge to the government’s bid process.The National Highways Builders Federation, an industry body, filed a suit in January against guidelines issued by the finance ministry and ratified by the Prime Minister’s committee on infrastructure that favour bidders who have executed large projects. The norms, reported by Mint on 28 December, cap the number of bidders at six, with some individual exceptions.“There are three factors that could affect the process (of awarding contracts),” said Kuljit Singh, a partner with the transaction advisory services practice of audit and consulting firm Ernst and Young Pvt. Ltd.“Technical detailed project reports usually take a while to prepare. Also, things generally slow down a little in an election year. Also, depending on what the court finds (in the case where the National Highways Builders Federation has challenged NHAI’s bidding norms), the process could be affected,” he added.Source: http://www.livemint.com
Cartelisation highway leads to Delhi
March 11, 2008
NEW DELHI: The National Highways Builders Federation, a body representing infrastructure companies, has filed a case in the high court against the ministries of finance and surface transport, and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), stating the recently-announced selection process for infrastructure project bidders is promoting cartelisation within the industry. According to the federation, only bigger players such as GMR, GVK and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure will benefit from the new policies. Fearing cartelisation, smaller players, including Gammon India and Navyug, had lodged an official complaint with the federation. In December 2007, the government had announced a new selection process for infrastructure project bidders. According to the policy, only six bidders with the maximum experience would be eligible to participate in the financial bid stage. However, the policy does not specify the names of the six bidders. Earlier, NHAI had been developing infrastructure projects under another scheme in public-private partnership projects. So far, NHAI had issued a notice inviting tenders that was divided into two parts: technical bid and financial bid. In the technical bid stage, the credibility of the bidder was examined. Those eligible for this round could bid in the financial round. For this, the bidder would either give a grant to the government or give the minimum concession period — the shortest period under which it would return project to the government. “The policies are tilted towards the big players in the industry, whereby the top six companies will always be successful bidders with their kind of experience,” Hammurabi & Solomon senior partner Manoj Kumar told ET. Under the present policy, bidders that do not make it to the top six would automatically be pushed out of the race. “This is unfair and will lead to cartelisation,” sources said. Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com