NHAI agrees to suggestions by developers body to ease highway construction

To resolve issues and speed up construction of highway projects, the government on Friday said the NHAI has agreed to most of the suggestions made by the highways builders body NHBF.

The suggestions were made pertaining to nine areas that included COVID-19 relief, bidding process, contract management, EPC (engineering, procurement and construction), HAM (hybrid annuity mode) and BOT (build, operate and transfer) agreements and project preparations.

"In order to resolve issues and increase the pace of construction of highway projects, NHAI has agreed to most of the suggestions made by the National Highways Builders Federation (NHBF) related to project delivery," the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.

The suggestions made by the NHBF were deliberated by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for proper redressal and the authority has agreed to 25 suggestions which were related to the NHAI, it said adding that the authority has assured that all good suggestions shall be positively considered in future too.

Other suggestions pertaining to policy related matters have been sent to the ministry for consideration.

Some of the key suggestions accepted by the NHAI include extension of time to contractor/ concessionaire for construction period without imposition of any cost or penalty by the project director up to 3 months and regional officer for more than three months and up to six months in view of COVID-19.

Other suggestions included providing DPR (detailed project report) along with Network Survey Vehicle (NSV)/data as per availability to the bidders by the NHAI and making available all survey data collected by DPR consultants to agencies under one platform through 'Data Lake' in order to enable the bidder to have an assessment of road condition at the time of bidding.

It also included ensuring timely payments to vendors.

The NHAI in the past has also taken various initiatives from time to time to support concessionaires.

In March 2020, the NHAI disbursed Rs 10,000 crore through online payments and ensured that no payments remain pending due to closure of office during the lockdown.

In the first quarter of the current financial year, the NHAI disbursed more than Rs 15,000 crore to the vendors.

Additionally, steps such as monthly payments to the contractors were taken to ensure cash flow to the contractors.

Such moderations resulted in spiraling effect on the growth of the road sector, the government said.