Major issues impeding road sector resolved: Govt

The government today said it has cleared bottlenecks impeding the growth of highways sector, including de-linking environment clearance from forest nod, paving the way for 20 stalled projects entailing investments of Rs 27,000 crore.
The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) also approved the constitution of a high-level committee to look into the unresolved issues impacting the sector.
"The CCI was informed today that some of the bottlenecks identified by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) for the fast-track implementation of National Highways Development Project (NHDP) have now been removed as a result of the efforts made by the Ministry," an official statement said after the meeting.

Some unresolved issues fall in the domain of other ministries, it said, adding that a high level committee under the chairmanship of Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, Member, Planning Commission, has been constituted to suggest an amicable solution to these.
The statement said the issues resolved include grant of "Special Exemption or No Objection Certificate under Forest Rights Act, 2006" for strengthening and widening of National Highways projects, specifically pertaining to diversion of protected forest land under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
Other major issues resolved include "de-linking the grant of environment clearance from forest clearance for linear projects" and "treating the strengthening and widening of national highways infrastructure projects differently from the new projects and allowing construction of national highways in non-forest areas, as expenditure does not become infructuous in such projects."

The CCI gave nod to enhance the ceiling of 4,000 km of four laning in NHDP Phase-IV to 8,000 km on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) (Toll) mode only, based on the traffic justification according to the Indian Road Congress (IRC) code and guidelines.