A committee, under the chairmanship of Nilesh Sathe, former member of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), has been set up.
The penalty imposed by Sebi on NHAI for not declaring financial results within the stipulated time seems like an exercise in tokenism
The greenfield expressway will connect Delhi to Amritsar via a shorter alignment and will also extend to Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu
It does not compensate for loss in net present value terms for most Build-Operate-Transfer toll projects, says agency
25% average toll collection loss to get one-day extension
NHAI Chairman Sukhbir Singh Sandhu said the matter of land acquisition should not be left pending as it leads to litigation cases in the future.
During its investigation, Sebi found that NHAI delayed filing of its half-yearly financial results by 4 days to 78 days between 2015-16 to 2018-19.
The losses would reverse the trend growth of 11% per annum the industry has logged over the past ten years, making it one of the most adversely affected sectors of the economy
Response from investors is expected to be lukewarm
NHAI invited bids for the fourth TOT contract in October 2019 and expected to raise over Rs 4,000 crore by offering a total of 7 road stretches, with a cumulative length of 400 km
Toll collection has restarted since, but there is unlikely to be a V-shaped revival in traffic after the lockdown ends - probably - on May 17. There will only be a gradual return to normalcy
Transporters had anticipated around 25% traffic back on the roads from April 20. However, due to various supply chain disruptions the traffic was around 10-15%.
NHAI targets to build 4,500-km highways in current fiscal year
Experts believe it will take about three to four months for the constructions to normalise and the fresh bidding of contracts is some time away.
Constructed by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century, the original road over the years extended right up to Kabul in Afghanistan (in the west) and Chittagong in Bangladesh (in the east).
NHAI had suspended toll collection on all national highways after the 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24 to ease emergency services in view of the coronavirus outbreak
Not all companies to gain. while those in hotspots will remain shut, industry feels relaxation applies only to open-air work, not underground or tunnelling operations
The government will give thrust to the use of technology for speeding up project awards, so that the impact of time lapsed due to the coronavirus disease crisis can be minimised
As work came to a halt, mobilised equipment remain stranded with idling costs rising
However, the authority stopped short of meeting its target of 4500 km for the current fiscal, which effectively translates into 12.32 km per day as against the accomplishment of 10.9 km per day.