PM Narendra Modi to review highway projects on July 2

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called a meeting to review the status of highway projects on July 2, prompting the Nitin Gadkari-led road ministry to prepare a presentation that will emphasise on important policy initiatives taken in the ministry that has been at the forefront of reviving investments in infrastructure under this government.

The ministry officials are confident of presenting a good progress report to the prime minister. “We have taken conscious steps to deal with the challenges the road sector is facing. We are seeing results in the bidding trends already,” a senior government official said. The road ministry is in the process of receiving bids for close to 700 km stretch of projects worth Rs 9,200 crore on build-operate-transfer (BOT)-toll mode.

The amount is more than the total award of 733 km at Rs 6,300 crore through the same route last year. In 2013-14, only two projects with aggregate length of 221 km could be awarded on BOT-toll mode.

The government has allocated Rs 42,913 crore for the highways sector in the budget for the current fiscal, up from Rs 28,881 crore in 2014-15, to ensure greater participation in road building in absence of private investment. The industry has given the thumbs up to the government’s initiative. “There is a lot of action and new projects are coming up for bids. Some small hurdles are left which are also being sorted out now,” said Satish Parakh, managing director of Ashoka Buildcon.



The government is lining up projects up to 10,000 km for award this year. Besides, about 111 projects completed on the engineering, construction and procurement mode are ready to be put up for sale by the government. For the BOT-toll projects too, the government has approved the exit policy which allows an operator to move out of a project two years after the completion. This has been done to free up the locked capital for further investment in the infrastructure sector.

While the government is for a revival and increased momentum in the highway sector, it has gone to Spain, Malaysia and Japan to invite investors to take part in projects under its latest hybrid annuity model. It expects at least 40-45 projects based on this – 60 per cent of the project cost will come from private investors and the remaining 40 per cent in five equal instalments from the National Highways Authority of India.