French Consultant For Expressway

The French company Seataroute has been appointed as consultant for the Durgapaur Expressway project. The estimated project cost is Rs 400 crore.

Half the work on the expressway has been completed. Seataroute has been appointed to provide engineering design and work out methods of cost recovery for the remaining part of the corridor.

The methods of cost recovery worked out by the ministry of surface transport include an annual payment to project operators who will not be allowed to collect toll and shadow tolling, where operators are paid on the basis of traffic flow along the corridor.

Currently, however, the idea is to adopt a direct tolling structure for cost recovery.

Expressways are not covered by the ceiling of 40 paise per km per passenger car unit because the cost per km in expressway projects is about Rs 6 crore as against Rs 4 crore in a normal highway

The Durgapur Expressway will provide a high-speed corridor between Calcutta and Durgapur and cut travel time by at least 25 per cent.

The project is expected to come up for financial closure this year.

This is the third expressway being taken up the ministry of surface transport. The other two expressway projects are the Kanpur-Agra and the Vadodara-Mumbai corridors.

While the Kanpur-Agra and Mumbai-Vadodara corridors are to be implemented and financed by the National Highways Authority of India, the Durgapur Expressway is expected to be implemented on a build-operate-transfer basis.

Seataroute is not the first French company in the country. Another French company, Transroute International, has already tied up with the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation for upgrading the state's highway network.

Both Seataroute and Transroute are owned by the French government.