UPA-2 road plans hit a bump

October 26, 2009

NEW DELHI: This could be an indicator of how the ambitious highway development programme has been a non-starter in UPA-2. National Highways

Authority of India (NHAI) has awarded only 17 projects for 1,574 km since January against the plan of awarding 135 projects (14,384 km) in the current financial.

A presentation made by the highway regulator at a CII conference on consulting services on Tuesday pointed to the huge gap between the projection and actual pace of award of projects in the past 10 months. As per the presentation, only 17 projects costing Rs 17,757 crore were awarded including one project on BOT (annuity). It further showed that nine more projects on BOT (toll) and two on annuity modes were under the process of award. However, information was not available on how many highway projects were awarded since the change of guard in the ministry.

NHAI officials blamed the slow pace on certain “controversial clauses” and provisions in the request for quotation (RFQ) and request for proposal (RFP) and the model concession agreement. “We had prepared a plan to award 60 projects last year but the economic downturn hit us hard and only 12-13 projects could be awarded. Many projects could not achieve financial closure even after awarding. This time it’s equally worse due to certain contractual provisions and clauses of the bid documents including the conflict of interest clause,” said a senior official.

Road, transport and highways minister Kamal Nath has already identified the interpretation of ‘conflict of interest’ as the biggest roadblock in the fast tracking of highway projects.

Transport secretary Brahm Dutt admitted on Tuesday that the award of projects was taking time while the ministry had set a target of achieving construction of 20 km highway per day.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com