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| Priority to continue for highway projects |
| Sanjay Jog / Mumbai Feb 15, 2012, 00:23 IST |
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Undeterred by the global slowdown and hurdles in land acquisition, the Centre expects to continue a huge pace of investment in roads and highways during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17).
C P Joshi, minister of road transport and highways, told Business Standard his ministry planned to undertake the conversion of 20,000 km of single lanes into double lanes through the engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) model during the 12th Plan period. This envisages an investment of Rs 70,000 crore.
Joshi said a number of steps had been initiated to enable faster and more inclusive growth of the transportation sector. “To sustain the acceleration in the award process, annual pre-qualification of bidders has been introduced, along with e-tendering and e-procurement of projects. The National Highways Development Authority (NHAI) is poised to achieve the target of awarding projects totaling 7,300 km this year and the next two years. We are actively considering developing an acceptable EPC document that would promote cost-effective and timely execution of projects,” he said.
“This time, we have fixed our target for awarding projects at 7,300 km. Of this, 31 projects of about 4,382 km and a total project cost of about Rs 39,152 crore have been awarded till January 31. We have decided to adopt a pro-active approach rather than a reactive approach to maintenance,” Joshi said.
He added the response to this was overwhelming. “NHAI has received record premiums this year. Let me share that 21 of the 31 projects awarded in the current financial year till January fetched premium of about Rs 2,174.9 crore. NHAI would continue to receive this premium annually for the next 20 years.”
According to Joshi, an investment of Rs 1.35 lakh crore had been made to develop 15,000 km of roads in 2000-11 under the National Highways Development Programme. The investment proposed for the project was Rs 1.60 lakh crore, and this was scheduled to develop 17,000 km of roads.
The minister said mobilisation of funds was not a problem. NHAI’s recent tax-free bond issue of Rs 10,000 crore was oversubscribed and helped the authority mobilise Rs 25,220 crore, he added. “This success is due to the huge interest shown by qualified institutional buyers and high net worth investors in NHAI. I am appealing to investors to come forward in the future as well,” he said.
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