Many in race for new NHDP projects

Among the bidders are Larsen & Toubro, HCC, Soma Isolet consortium and KMC.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has got an average of over 15 bidders for each of 35 new projects worth Rs 39,000 crore under the various phases of the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP).

Among the bidders are Larsen & Toubro, HCC, Soma Isolet consortium and KMC. All these projects will have no cap on the number of companies who will be technically qualified for the final financial bid. Earlier under a scoring system, only five or six bidders could make a financial offer.
 

THE ROAD AHEAD
Phase stretch	NH	km	amount (in Rs cr)
V Udaipur-Ahmedabad	NH-8	235 km	1,750
V Satara-Kagal	NH-4	133 km	1,400
V Tumkur-Chitradurga	NH-4	114 km	839
III Bareilly-Sitapur	NH-24	152 km	1,046
III Indore-Gujarat MP border	NH-59	155 km	1,297

“Yes, 22 projects have cleared the RFQ stage and the response has been good,” said a senior NHAI official.

“We have received good response for these fresh projects. Many projects are on Build, Operate and Transfer (toll) and some on BOT (annuity),” said another NHAI official.

The projects put for bid under the annuity model are the seven in the 270 km Jammu to Srinagar road worth Rs 9,500 crore. “As the road projects in Jammu and Kashmir are not financially viable and also expensive because of the large number of tunnels to be built on this stretch, they have been taken under annuity,” said a NHAI official.

Among the 35 projects, six are under Phase II, 22 are under Phase III and seven are under Phase V of the NHDP.

Phase II constitutes the North-South corridor connecting Srinagar to Kanyakumari, including the Kochi-Salem spur and the East-West Corridor connecting Silchar to Porbandar, beside port connectivity and some other projects on the national highways.

Phase III aims at four-laning of 12,109 km of high-density national highways. NHDP-V seeks six-laning of the four-lane highways comprising the Golden Quadrilateral and certain other high-density stretches through PPP to be completed by 2012.

Last year, of the 60 projects worth Rs 60,000 crore that were up for bid, only 13 could attract any. Many projects did not attract even one bid.