NHAI scraps Transstroy's Rs 912-cr highway project

Acting tough against developers failing to adhere to contract timelines, NHAI has scrapped a Rs 912-crore contract awarded to Transstroy Ltd for a highway project in Madhya Pradesh.
"NHAI has terminated a contract given to Transstroy Ltd for four-laning of Obedullaganj-Betul section on NH-69 in Madhya Pradesh for which it had executed a contract with the company in April 2012, due to extremely slow pace of work on the project," an official told PTI.
The Rs 912-crore contract was to be executed on build operate transfer (toll) basis on design, build, finance, operate and transfer pattern under the government's flagship road building programme NHDP.

The decision to terminate the contract to four-lane 121.36 km stretch on NH 69 was taken after serving several warning notices to the developer which failed to expedite work, the official informed.
The project was scheduled to be completed in August 2016 but the physical progress was barely "1.34 per cent", the official said.
The Hyderabad-based firm which had formed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) Transstroy Obedullaganj-Betul Tollways Private Ltd could not be contacted.

The authority has started terminating contracts where developers failed to execute projects despite warnings.
Earlier, the NHAI got a bizarre bid of just Rs 1,500 from KMC Constructions for a project worth Rs 1,858 crore, while Tata Group firm Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL) had withdrawn bids for two other projects, prompting earnest money forfeiture in all three cases.

The three projects were worth over Rs 4,000 crore were located in Odisha, Rajasthan and Gujarat, while the earnest money deposit forfeited by NHAI was about Rs 30 crore.
NHAI Chairman Raghav Chandra has said that the authority had to take such decision as such bids amounted to delays in highway projects, besides causing uncalled for complications.
TRIL had bid for two projects worth Rs 2,272 crore for widening of different sections of Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway but later after emerging as the lowest bidder for both the projects, the firm said that it had miscalculated the bidding cost and therefore would like to withdraw from bidding.

KMC Constructions Ltd, in response to a bid for Rs 1,858 crore Angul-Sambalpur highway project in Odisha, had quoted "only Rs 1,500 crore" and later "cited system error as the reason. However, the NHAI had said that investigations of NHAI revealed that the builder was lying and their bid was rejected.