French Firm To Assist In Highway Projects
The government has requisitioned the services of French highway consultancy firm Scetauroute to guide the Indian authorities on development of national highways with private sector participation.
An expert from the firm arrived in New Delhi on the week-end and is having discussions with the officials of the National Highway Authority of India on the preliminaries of the job. On the basis of the discussions, a team of experts in handling diverse nature of highway jobs will come in August to start the work.
Officials say the job of the consultants will be to prepare a framework for implementation of the national highway and expressway projects. This will include a review of the legal measures taken by the government to promote highway development, the scheme of financing and matters concerning land acquisition.
Besides, the consultants will be asked to prepare a standard bidding document covering the legal, technical, financial, operational and other aspects of highway projects which are proposed to be developed on a build-operate-transfer by the private sector. The entire cost of the consultancy is to be borne by the World Bank which has already approved the French firm on the recommendation of the Indian government. The Union government, to facilitate its interaction with domestic and foreign private investors, has decided to use Internet.
The computer unit in the surface transport ministry is being upgraded for the purpose.
The ministry was hitherto approaching investors, particularly the foreign ones, through embassy channels. As a result, there had been a lot of communication gap, besides inordinate delays in the information reaching the people concerned.
The ministry is, therefore, going in for Internet, largely on the suggestion of US investors.