Roads Min decentralises work to build 20 km a day

The road transport ministry is decentralising its functioning to speed up and achieve the target of building roads at a pace of 20 km per day. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had earlier decentralised its work to increase efficiency and pace of construction.

The ministry is opening seven regional offices to award road projects directly. They are Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Chennai and Bhopal. Each region is to be headed by a chief engineer.

Projects under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) come under the NHAI and the rest are done by the ministry. It earlier awarded the roads to be built or maintained to the Public Works Department of respective states.

NHAI had opened 150 special land acquisition units (SLUs) and 10 regional offices. The SLUs are in Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Goa. The regional offices are in Lucknow, Patna, Jammu, Chennai, Guwahati, Delhi, Nagpur, Bangalore and Kolkata.

In June 2009, a few days after Kamal Nath took charge of the ministry, he set a target of building 20 km of road a day. Recently he announced that the government would achieve its target by June 2010. The first five years of the UPA rule (from 2004) had seen construction at a pace of 4 km per day.

“We are doing 13 km a day and will add another 4,000 km in the next three months,” Nath said on the sidelines of the Essar Steel Infrastructure Excellence Awards 2010 recently.

NHAI plans to award over 200 projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore by the end of 2010-11. To streamline the process and avoid frivolous bidding, the highways authority has revised eligibility conditions, including raising the net worth criteria of the bidder, to restrict to only big national and international companies all projects that cost over Rs 3,000 crore.

The total length of the country’s national highways is also being increased by 10,000 km to over 80,000 km, with the empowered group of ministers last week giving an in-principle approval to convert state highways.

THE ROAD AHEAD

# Move to decentralise work is aimed at speeding up the process and achieving the target of building roads at the pace of 20 km a day

# The ministry is opening seven regional offices — in Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Chennai and Bhopal — to awards road projects directly

# Projects under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) come under NHAI and the rest are under the ministry

# NHAI plans to award over 200 projects, worth Rs 2 lakh crore, by the end of 2010-11

# To streamline the process and avoid frivolous bidding, NHAI has revised the norms, including raising the net worth criteria of the bidder

# A few days after Roads and Transport Minister Kamal Nath took charge, he had set a target of building 20 km of road a day

# Nath recently announced the government would achieve its target by June 2010. The first five years of the UPA rule (from 2004) had seen construction at the pace of four km a day