NEW DELHI: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) told the Delhi high court on Monday that revenues from the 32-lane toll plaza on Gurgaon expressway increased by Rs 60 lakh in a single month after it commissioned a survey to monitor collections.
The highway authority said the KPMG survey, which estimated the traffic volumes on the road, proved that the private concessionaire operating the expressway “can’t be trusted” because it had been under-reporting traffic.
“The operator is receiving money but not accounting (it). We found that the handheld devices with which they collect toll during peak hours are not connected to the main server for escrow accounts. Same is the case with extra toll booths they set up. This money was not accounted for,” senior advocate Sandeep Sethi, representing NHAI, claimed before Justice Manmohan Singh.
Sethi said once the survey findings were filed in HC and a show cause notice on underreporting of traffic issued to the private operator,Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL), “our revenue for September, collected in October, increased by Rs 60 lakh.”
The KPMG survey, which has been refuted by DGSCL, had claimed underreporting of vehicles causing a daily revenue leakage to the tune of Rs 15.58 lakh during August 2012 and July 2013.
When Justice Singh asked if the authority was open to “finding a cure” to the dispute if, for arguments sake, the operator was willing to refund the amount allegedly siphoned, Sethi replied in the negative. “All that is now history. We can’t repose our faith in the operator. We have learnt from our mistakes,” the counsel said, making it clear that NHAI was not interested in a settlement with the firm.
On being further prodded by the court, the counsel claimed despite interventions by various authorities, commuters continue to suffer as DGSCL has not implemented reforms nor is it trying to improve traffic flow. Answering the court’s apprehension on the future of the toll plaza if it sanctions termination of the contract, NHAI indicated it will operate it till it finds a suitable replacement. The court will hear DGSCL’s defence on Friday.
“We have strongly refuted the KPMG survey findings and would take this up in the court as well in the next hearing,” the DGSCL spokesperson said. “The survey was done manually which is prone to human error and did not employ scientific and automated vehicle classification and counting (AVCC) system as stipulated in the concession agreement and neither did it correctly account for exemptions and run-throughs of traffic.”
Regarding the variation of toll revenues across months, the spokesperson said traffic volumes and revenues in the festive months of September and October were always higher than the holiday and monsoon months of July and August.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that the concessionaire of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway had misrepresented the revenue collection from the toll booths.
“My fingers have been burned,” Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, who is representing NHAI, said, while telling the court that his client had asked KPMG in July to carry out an independent verification of the daily traffic and toll booth collections, after “developing apprehensions that the concessionaire was misreporting collections”.
NHAI had issued a showcause notice to the concessionaire, Delhi Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL), after the auditor had reported inaccuracies in revenue figures.
During arguments, Sethi also alleged that after the showcause notice was issued, NHAI’s share of revenue from the toll booths had risen from Rs 1.22 crore in August to Rs 1.82 crore in September. “The revenue share for the NHAI jumped by 60 lakh,” Sethi said.
The NHAI had filed a criminal complaint against D S Constructions, DGSCL’s parent company, earlier this month, accusing the concessionaire of cheating and causing wrongful loss by under-reporting traffic at the 32-lane toll plaza.
Sethi also argued that despite an agreement between NHAI and D S Constructions, the concessionaire had refused to let NHAI staff man the booths.
Contending that the concessionaire should be “substituted with another eligible entity”, Sethi told the bench of Justice Manmohan Singh, “NHAI, as a receiver of the property, will run the toll business, until the time it identifies, evaluates and finalises a substitute concessionaire.”
The HC was hearing arguments on a plea filed by D S Construction against a notice issued to it by NHAI on December 7, 2012, to terminate the concession agreement which permitted the private company to run both the toll booths and the expressway.
NHAI had also accused concessionaire Delhi Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL) of fraud, claiming that the company had re-financed the project without NHAI’s approval. The highway authority had also accused DGSCL of failing to improve services at the 32-lane toll plaza.
NASHIK: Road connectivity between Surat and Nashik is set to improve, with the Gujarat government taking up paving work of the Surat-Nashik Road, Gujarat principal secretary S S Rathore said in Nashik on Saturday.
Rathore, principal secretary, department of roads & buildings of the Gujarat government, was attending a engineers’ award presentation at the Nashik centre of The Institution of Engineers (India) on Saturday. “We are focusing on improving connectivity between Gujarat and Maharashtra, from Surat to Saputra, which is the border of Gujrat adjacent to Nashik district. We have already handed over a road to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for widening. Around 98 per cent work has already been completed, while the rest of the stretch before Saputara is to be developed shortly,” Rathore said at the programme.
Rathore said, “We are planning to develop 18,000 km of roads across the state of Gujarat over the next few years. We have improved connectivity between districts. We have also improved road connectivity in 98 per cent of villages. We have decided to resurface roads that are over seven years old.”
S Subrahmanyan, managing director of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) said, “There are several technological challenges and engineers must focus on finding solutions over these. They must be innovative to bring quality and competitiveness.”
Sanjay Khandare, Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) commissioner also attended the event.
Various engineering awards instituted by the Nashik local centre of The Institution of Engineers (India) were presented at the event to Anil Lodha, Nayana S Rao, Rajesh Atmaram Patil, Chandrashekhar N Kulkarni, Rajan Bhagawat, professor Prakash Kadave, Naresh Sahare, Vikas Agrawal, Ghanashyam Patil, Atul Jadhav, Sopan Talekar, Shrikant Agarkar, Smita Paithankar, Manisha Suryavanshi and Priyanka Shirude.
(NHAI nod to L&T’s Singapore plans, co plans to list six toll road projects)
NEW DELHI: The National Highways Authority of India board has approved engineering and construction firm L&T’s plans to set up a business trust in Singapore and list six toll road projects on theSingapore stock exchange that could raise up to $1 billion.The business trust will be set by the firm’s subsidiary L&T Infra Development Projects Ltd (IDPL) and the parent company can offload its equity in these six road projects to the trust, persons familiar with the matter told ET.The trust will have to form a special purpose vehicle, which will float or issue units to investors on these assets through an initial public offer. The trust will then issue debt instruments in the form of debentures to the SPVs undertaking these highway projects, said the persons, who did not wish to be named.
This will be implemented as a policy measure so that other developers looking at a similar route can follow suit, they said.
“Infrastructure stocks on the Indian stock market are not doing too well whereas the Singapore stock market is and they have mature investors who can handle long-term investments. While this will be subject to many factors including the Singapore stock exchange allowing it, if it is successful it will be a positive development since other developers can use it as an additional source of funding for their projects,” said Abhaya Agarwal, partner-infrastructure and PPP at consulting firm EY.
The six road projects include the Rs 1370 crore Krishnagiri-Walajahpet project in Tamil Nadu which is under implementation and five other completed projects including the Vadodara-Bharuch, Palanpur-Swaroopganj, Krishnagiri-Thopur projects and the Panipat elevated corridor.
The business trust model is similar to REIT or real estate investment trust model which offers revenue-generating real estate to investors.
A spokesperson of L&T told ET, “The company does not comment on market speculation.” L&T IDPL did not respond to the questionnaire sent by ET.
The NHAI board’s approval is subject to certain checks and balances which it has said the company must follow including that the company must get a legal opinion on the matter and the interest rate at which the trust lends to the SPVs must not be more than the interest rate it pays to its current lenders. In addition, the foreign exchange risk must be borne by the trust, it has specified.
“Road projects are public assets and in any case of equity transfer of more than 15%, it has to be approved by NHAI. Also, refinancing or changes in debt structure have also to be approved by us,” said an official familiar with the matter.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) today told the Supreme Court that the company which was given the contract for constructing the 291-km Panipat-Jalandhar highway had not done complete work even on one square inch of the road.
Arguing before a Bench comprising Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Pinaki Chandra Ghose, senior counsel Indu Malhotra said though the company, Soma Isolux, was claiming that 70 per cent of the work was over on the Rs 4,500 crore project, no stretch of the highway was ready with all the layers laid as specified in the contract.
Malhotra made the statement while responding to a query by the Bench on the distance between the toll plazas at Karnal and Ambala and the completed stretch of the six-lane highway.
Strongly opposing the company’s plea for shifting the toll plazas to different locations, NHAI disputed the contractor’s logic behind the move. The company was claiming that shifting was necessary to plug leakage of toll revenue arising from vehicles bypassing the plazas, but the real reason was to bring vehicles from additional areas under the purview of toll collection and earn as much as Rs 1,000 crore more every year, the authority said.
The additional areas sought to be covered by the company had not been taken into account while finalising the terms of the bid for awarding the contract for the project, the NHAI argued. Had it been taken into account, the terms would have been quite different.
However, the Bench wanted to know as to why the authority had inserted a clause in the contract with a provision for shifting of the toll plazas and subsequently granted in principle consent as well.
The NHAI said the approval was subject to endorsements by an independent engineer and the Centre, which decided the toll. The independent engineer and a safety expert had rejected the plea for shifting the plazas three times, citing financial implications and safety.
The NHAI also maintained that while accepting the contract the company had agreed to run the three toll plazas at the pre-existing places. Further, the company has been collecting toll from May 2009 even before beginning work on the project and earning about Rs 304 crore a year since then. The arguments remain inconclusive.
The company has come to the SC challenging the HC verdict cancelling the contract. The SC stayed the HC verdict on June 12 and allowed the company to go ahead with the work. But NHAI today contended that the construction work was at a standstill with the company insisting on shifting the plazas before resuming the project.
NEW DELHI: National Highways Authority of India’s proposal to suspend toll on the Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch of NH-8 till completion of widening was turned down by its board on Tuesday.
The NHAI board, which has members from three different departments and ministries, felt suspension of toll collection would kill the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model for road construction and would also go against “contract conditions”.
The board met on Tuesday to decide on several items relating to highway projects including this case. “NHAI had put the toll suspension proposal to bring relief to commuters during delayed construction phase. But the decision had to be taken by the board. Now the authority will serve notice to the private contractor and if fails to meet the targets, NHAI can take over the project,” said a government official.
In that case, the project will come back to NHAI and it will have the tolling right. Sources said this provision is clearly mentioned in the concession agreement and it should be “implemented”. The authority in its original proposal had pitched for toll suspension citing that even if NHAI charges toll, there will be no relief to road users.
“Since there is huge investment of banks and financial institutions, suspending toll collection will have severe implications on the sector as a whole. After taking over the project, NHAI can pay back the loan,” an official said. He added that NHAI will take up regular maintenance and full development of the project.
Those who favoured this decision felt NHAI could push the pace of construction by putting a large portion of the total toll collection in project work. At present, NHAI gets 52% share of the toll collected. Officials said to pump more funds for faster construction, NHAI can defer taking this revenue share.
Although Tuesday’s decision comes as a blow to commuters using this stretch, in case of future six-laning projects, tolling will be suspended in case developers fail to meet the deadline. This decision was taken recently by the Cabinet.
NEW DELHI: A month after National Highways Authority of India moved a proposal to suspend tolling on the Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch, the authority’s board is likely to consider the plan on Tuesday. The board has representation from highways and finance ministries besides the Planning Commission.Sources said the proposal was included in the agenda since the road transport and highways ministry had advised NHAI to first take the matter to the board. The ministry was of the opinion that suspension of toll till expansion work was completed would impact finances of the project and the issue should be considered in detail by the board. “Once the board approves the proposal, the matter will be referred to the highways ministry for order,” a source said.
NHAI in its earlier note to the ministry sought in-principle approval to suspend toll on all delayed projects where tolling was allowed even during construction phase. It had cited the example of the Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch of NH-8 where widening work missed several deadlines. TOI had run a series of articles highlighting commuters’ woes, who not only pay toll but also face traffic jams.
NHAI had said that in case private developers fail to maintain the stretches properly and miss completion targets despite land availability, the authority was empowered to take over the stretch and collect toll. But since this would not bring relief to road users, who would still have to pay toll for travelling through substandard and congested stretches, NHAI suggested stopping toll collection as a deterrent for consistent defaulters. “Since the contract agreement does not have a provision of suspending toll, we have sought permission from the ministry. This is a public interest issue,” an NHAI official had told TOI. Among other works that have missed several deadlines is the Panipat-Jalandhar six-laning project.
NHAI expects to award 2,000 km of highways by March.
Invests Rs 3,000 cr to buy 5,000 hectares in first half of 2013-14
NEW DELHI|
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) may have seen a slow down in awarding projects, but its land acquisition activity has picked up.
In the first half of 2013-14, NHAI acquired almost 5,000 hectares, which is 51 per cent more than the 3,300 hectares it bought in the same period last year.
Land in possession is a parameter that indicates the level of preparedness of NHAI for awarding projects.
The land acquired will be used for projects already awarded by NHAI and those that are yet to be awarded. However, the official did not share details whether a larger part of land acquisition was for future road projects or to meet the NHAI’s obligations for land acquisition last year.
“In the first six months of 2013-14, we had about 5,000 hectares in possession and 5,600 hectares with 3D notification, which is the stage when land vests with NHAI,” said a senior NHAI official, declining to be identified. Possession is the final level of land acquisition, and comes after land is vested with NHAI.
In 2012-13, the level of land in possession was 6,800 hectares, which is lower than the current fiscal and in 2011-12. NHAI got 6,800 hectare of land in possession and 8,000 hectare in 3D stage.
Since land acquisition is a continuous activity with multiple layers of interaction with land owners and State Government officials, it would be difficult to pinpoint any specific reason for the activity slowing down last fiscal (2012-13) purely from a ‘taking possession’ perspective, the official said.
EXPENSES
In terms of expenses, NHAI spent Rs 3,000 crore in the first-half of 2013-14 for land acquisition, while it had spent Rs 1,400 crore in the same period last year.
However, the official declined to comment on any average price for land, pointing out that there are wide price variations depending on the area where land is acquired.
In 2012-13, NHAI spent about Rs 4,500-4,600 crore to acquire land, while in fiscal 2011-12, the highway body spent Rs 5,000 crore.
The impact of the recent Land Acquisition Bill on NHAI is not yet clear, as the National Highways Act was out of the purview of the Bill.
Meanwhile, NHAI, which has awarded 500-600 km of highways for development on engineering procurement contract (EPC) basis, expects to award 2,000 km of highways by March.
EPC contracts are road development projects which are entirely Government-funded.
By March 2014, actual work on ground would have begun for the development of 1,500 km of highways, NHAI Chairman R.P. Singh told Business Line.
“Now, we are only awarding highway projects for which we already have 90 per cent land possession,” said Singh.
This is unlike the earlier years when projects were awarded without enough land in place.
CHANGES COURSE
This year, both Highway Ministry and NHAI have changed course away from public-private partnership contracts, after they did not receive any response from highway developers.
Mangalore, Oct 17: “The National highway from Pumpwell circle till Talapady (Kerala border) is poorly maintained and we find many potholes creating trouble for people. Looking at the overall condition as no repair works are undertaken in this road, it looks like there is a mutual understanding between the NHAI with the Navayug Udupi toll way private limited who are in-charge of it said advocate S S Khazi.
Speaking to the media on Thursday October 17, he said the NHAI had given the tender to Navayug company in 2010 with two main responsibilities, that is to undertake four lane work and maintain the old roads for which Navayug company will be allowed to collect toll money from vehicles for 25 years. As per the contract, until the four lane work is done, Navayug company has to main the old roads as well.
“Even after obtaining the contract 3 years back, not even 10 % of the road widening work is done nor are the roads maintained properly. The above instance shows that the crores of money sanctioned are looted by the company and NHAI, after having a secret understanding between themselves,” he said.
“I had also raised a few questions before the highway authority about the bad roads through RTI for which the authority were not specific in giving answers and tried to deviate the points raised. Even after highway authorities knows that the company has not undertaken any work, they do not take any actions,” he said.
“Officials promise people stating that very soon they will have beautiful pothole – free roads. But in reality the money sanctioned for the work is gulped by them. As a compensation for my travelling loss in these roads, I have sent a legal notice to the authority demanding compensation of Rs 5 lac which should be met in 60 days. If it is not fulfilled then I will step court,” he said.
“My fight is not for my personal benefit, instead my duty is to give good roads to the city,” said advocate and assured his support to people whoever raises their voice in this regard.
Activist moves HC, claims NHAI formula gives figures lower than those collected
The recent incident of firing at Khed Shivapur toll plaza has brought in the spotlight the ugly face of toll collection once more. A city-based right to information (RTI) activist has, in fact, moved the Bombay High Court claiming that the toll colleted at various toll plazas are much more than what should be charged.
City-based activist Sanjay Shirodkar has claimed that the state government is not following the formula specified by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) while specifying the charges at toll plazas in the state.
Shirodkar told dna, “I have already filed two public interest litigations in the Bombay High Court regarding toll. One of the PILs is about wrong formula applied by the state government while charging toll, due to which commuters have to pay more than what they should actually be paying.”
He added, “According to the resolution of the Central government, the toll should be charged on a formula which states that the base fee should be multiplied by wholesale price index of current financial year divided by wholesale price index of 1997. On the basis of this formula, the toll charges at Pune-Mumbai stretch of national highway number 4 should be Rs53 but the toll charges which are being charged are Rs87.”
Shirodkar has objected to the toll charges collected on Mumbai-Pune expressway.
He said, “There is a rule that if more than one lakh passenger car units (PCU) are passing through any highway in a day, the toll charges should not be increased. We have calculated PCU of Mumbai-Pune expressway on July 1, 2012 and the PCU was 1,18,469 and the next day it was 1,14,518 which suggests that the toll of Mumbai-Pune expressway should be increased from that day.”
dna contacted Ajay Saxena, who works with public private partnership cell of the state government. He said, “The problem with the toll is more regarding the services provided after charging toll. On some highways, it has been observed that toll is being charged but good quality of road is not provided to the commuters. Earlier, there were not many regulations, but recently the state government came up with regulations against toll collections agencies. According to those regulations, the agencies will have to provide quality service after charging toll from commuters or they will face action.” The toll what it is, what it should be
Activist Sanjay Shirodkar calculated the toll that should be charged
Road Toll charges Actual toll
as per formula charges
Kagal-Satara Rs62 Rs 124
Anewadi (Satara)-Khed Shivapur Rs24 Rs50
Khed Shivapur-Pune Rs15 Rs70
Mumbai-Pune NH-4 Rs53 Rs87
Pune-Shirur Rs30 Rs37
Shirur-Ahmednagar Rs26 Rs35
Ahmednagar-Aurangabad Rs58 Rs75
Pune-Belgaum Rs167 Rs294
