Government aims to raise Rs 3 lakh crore from fuel cess; to fund road schemes

NEW DELHI: The government will require at least Rs 3 lakh crore to implement the proposed new highway development programmes including Bharat Mala, Chardham connectivity and expanding about 17,500 km of the existing highway network.

If the current arrangement of Rs 6 cess of fuel continues, it will generate enough funds to meet this requirement (between 2016-17 and 2023-24), according to an estimate prepared by the road transport ministry .

“Since the specific share from fuel cess for highway building is non-lapsable, we will get the amount when we need it for undertaking more work. There are also enough indications of the fuel prices not going up in near future and the present arrangement will continue. The share from cess and budgetary allocation will be adequate to complete the new schemes,“ a ministry official said.

At present, road transport ministry gets about Rs 25,000 crore from the fuel cess for national highways and state roads. This is likely to increase to Rs 42,000 crore from next financial year.




According to sources, cabinet secretary P K Sinha in a recently held meeting has asked the ministry to club all these schemes under Bharat Mala. Initially , the plan was to have a list of schemes such as connecting border areas and ports under Bharat Mala with expenditure of Rs 80,200 crore, building bridges and rail over bridges under Sethu Bharatam with estimated investment of Rs 30,000 crore.Expenditure of another Rs 60,000 crore for constructing national highways connecting the 123 backward districts and Rs 82,000 crore for improving connectivity region al centres, tourists places and backward areas.

Similarly , Rs 11,700 crore is estimated to be spent for improving connectivity to Chardham. All these schemes put together will cover about improvement of 41,000 km road.

On top of this, road transport minister Nitin Gadkari has announced to increase the length of national highways by bring more state roads under this umbrella.

“So, we will need more fund for undertaking those works. Since there is hardly any hope of private investment coming to these financially unviable projects, government would have to fund these works,“ an official said.