National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to use the engineering procurement and construction (EPC) mode of road bidding for most of its projects, a senior official said today.
"We plan to adopt the EPC mode mainly for the projects where we plan to expand the single-laning to double-laning," NHAI member, finance, JN Singh told reporters here today.
The road builder has set a target of 20,000 km for double laning and plans to award contracts for 6,000-7,000 km every year, he said.
"The 20,000 km of road widening is mainly in the Eastern region where the population is more and very less space is available for expansion," Singh said, adding that toll collection or build operate and transfer (BOT) mode on these routes would not be a feasible option.
Earlier, the Planning Commission had also suggested to the roads ministry to revive the EPC mode of road bidding whereby projects will be awarded outright and the official role will be reduced to deciding specifications and quality.
Singh was here to launch NHAI's first-ever tax-free bonds issue of Rs 10,000 crore, which is opening on Wednesday and closes on January 11. The issue has an option to retain over-subscription up to Rs 10,000 crore.
The bonds having a face value of Rs 1,000, will have two maturity periods of 10 years and 15 years and would be listed on the BSE and the NSE.
The 10-year bonds will give 8.2% interest per annum, while the 15-year bonds would offer 8.3% interest.
"We have kept three categories for taking advantage of these tax-free bonds. Of this, 30% subscription has been kept for retail investors who can invest up to Rs 5 lakh.
Another 30% has been kept for the high networth individuals (HNIs), who can invest over and above Rs 5 lakh, while rest 40% has been kept for institutional investors," he added.
The money raised from the issue will be used to partly finance various national highway development projects and other government schemes, Singh said.
