Gadkari alleges cartelisation by cement cos; mulls NHAI revamp

Slamming the cement industry for indulging in "cartelisation", Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today said it is pushing up costs for roads and highway projects even as he promised a number of steps including revamp of NHAI to help the sector.
Gadkar said he will approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of "cartelisation" by the cement industry.
Every company has a right to make profit but there should not be any "exaggerated exploitation", he added.
"That the cement industry indulges in cartelisation, and it makes a huge difference to the production and marketing cost. We have decided to build cement concrete road and we want that the cost of construction should remain low," Gadkari said.

He emphasised on the need for reducing project costs and said: "We want to reduce the cost of the project and if we want to do that then we have to reduce the cost of material used for the project."
Gadkari also said that there is a need to revamp the National Highways Authority of India.

"A lot of changes are required to be made in NHAI, we need to revamp it. We have to bring in more transparency, make decision making time-bound and we need to make these efforts to make the sector grow," he said.
The ministry is studying a proposal to revamp and modernise NHAI. Last time restructuring at NHAI happened in 2009 to enhance its institutional capacity. It was done to make it a multi-disciplinary professional body with quality financial management and contract management expertise.

NHAI was constituted through the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988. It became operational in February 1995 and is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of national highways.
The government had targeted awarding 8,000 km of road projects during the current financial year and so far it has been able to award 7,000 km.
A majority of these projects will be built on EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) basis.
The current government has also revised the target of increasing road-building capacity to 30 km a day from the current three km a day.
Meanwhile, many private companies in the past have shied away from the government's attempt to bring PPP (public- private-partnership) model in road projects due to factors such as hurdles in land acquisition.

"Land acquisition, slow decisions, financial constraints due to bankers' unwillingness to finance projects were the reasons that private companies were not keen on setting up projects on PPP basis," Gadkari said, adding that the government is doing everything to make the business investment environment conducive in the sector.