Highway projects on roll again

NHAI awards 13 contracts after a year-long lull

After a lull of nearly a year, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is back in action. It awarded 13 contracts in April alone for the second phase of the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP).

The authority had given contracts worth Rs 1,900 crore for various stretches of roads forming the North-South and East-West (NS-EW) corridors totalling 422.47 km during the month, an NHAI official told Business Standard.

These 13 awards bring the total count of contracts awarded in this financial year to 21, including six Phase III stretches on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis which had been pending since November 2003 and two others under the NS-EW corridor.

The flurry of contracts comes after a year-long hiatus. No contract had been awarded since the change of government in May last year.

The approvals for the six Phase III contracts covering 10,000 km was received from the Centre only in March, 2005.

For the NS-EW Corridor, the projected investment did not materialise as the NHAI did not award any new contracts during the period.

"After projecting market borrowings of Rs 3,300 crore during 2004-05 on the expectation that some progress on the Phase-II would be achieved, we ended up not tapping the markets at all during the year," an official said.

In the past year, the authority was busy fine-tuning the terms of concession agreement to correct the anomalies that were found during the first phase of NHDP.

Local residents had complained of lack of planning for the flyovers and bypasses being built, officials said.

Work on the ground, however, progressed well. The stretches in the Golden Quadrilateral, for which contracts were awarded before May 2004, were completed at a faster rate.

During May 2004-April 2005, about 5.98 km of roads were widened every month as against 4.5 km per a month during the preceding 11-month period.

This acceleration was mainly due to the nature of work involved. Construction during the initial phases was slower as it involved time-consuming activities like land acquisition, seeking permissions from various agencies and digging up of land. In the later stages, only surfacing was required.

Another crucial factor is the bunching of contracts. If a number of contracts were awarded at the same time, the progress recorded was outstanding in terms of construction but zero in terms of completed sections, an official explained.

"On the other hand, bunching a large number of contracts nearing completion may give an impression of good progress," he said.

Road ahead

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Contracts for roads spanning 422.47 km costing about Rs 1,900 cr issued

While no contract had been given since May, 2004, 21 of them have been cleared in the past two months, including six stretches of Phase III

The delay in awarding the six contracts under the 10,000 km Phase III was attributed to the want of government approvals, which were received in March, 2005