Road ministry fixes 9,000 Km national highway target for this fiscal

April 18, 2013

NEW DELHI: The road ministry plans to award at least 7,300 kilometres of national highways this financial year. It has fixed an internal target of 9,000 km, which is a tad more ambitious than last year’s revised target of 8,800 kilometres.

The ministry has set a target of awarding 3,800 km in the first six months itself – higher than the 3,000 km announced by thefinance minister in his budget speech in February. The decision was taken after a review meeting held today by the road minister C P Joshi.

“We have set high internal targets so that we are able to achieve at least 3,000-km in the first six months and 7,300 km by the end of the year,” a road ministry official told ET. Last year, the ministry had managed to award road projects for only 1,933 km – 20% of what was planned for 2012-13. This year’s target of 7,300 km is line with the government’s promise of building 20 km a day.

“Of the 3,800 km, 1,654 km will be awarded by the ministry, 2,147 km will be through NHAI, about 1,200-km via the Engineering Procurement and Construction mode and 1,400 km through the Build-Operate-Transfer model,” said the official.

The road sector saw a dramatic drop last year in the number of projects that were bid for by companies. As many as 13 projects worth about 16,000 crore saw no takers. In contrast, 6,644-km – the highest since 2004 – was awarded in 2011-12. Ministry officials attribute this to a lack of equity with road construction companies and the overall economic environment. Given the subdued response to BOT toll projects, the ministry now plans to award more than 50% of the projects through the Engineering Procurement Construction mode.

It also aims to complete 4,500 km this year under schemes of National Highway Development Programme, Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North-East and Left Wing Extremism affected regions.

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