'Road sector brought to knees by Ministries in previous government'

NEW DELHI: The new government has blamed the previous regime’s policies like award of projects without land acquisition for the poor performance of road sector wherein about 60% of the National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) scheme are embroiled in disputes.

“Undue importance was given to award of projects...Awards became a number game...the actions of the Department of Financial Services (DoFS) and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) brought the entire road sector to its knees,” the white paper on NHAI released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said on Wednesday.

The NHAI was brought under pressure to award projects without land acquisition and other regulatory clearances, the paper said, while another document indicated that 189 out of 332 NHAI projects in 20 states involving Rs 27,210 crore are stuck in disputes. It said there was a tendency among ministries to “work in silos and alacrity to dominate over and preserve their individual turfs, even when it goes against national interest”.

Alleging the previous government of “continuous slippages” due to award of projects without any strategy, the white paper said: “NHAI had to go into a firefighting mode fighting a losing battle, the developers lost opportunities... lenders had to cope with defaults in debt servicing ... public could not avail benefits of completed roads and government itself lost enormous revenues.”

Stating that ministries, whose contribution was integral to the timely completion of projects, went about their task “unmindful and unconcerned with the crisis they were creating”, the paper accused the MoEF of a wrong interpretation of the SC order in a case and refusing environment clearances to projects. It accused DoFS of taking a contradictory stance against another wing of Ministry of Finance leading to delay and termination of projects.

“While the MCA approved by DoE only requires that 80 per cent land be made available on the appointed date, DoFS directed all state-owned banks that they shall not lend to road projects unless 100% land is available”, leading to no loan to projects, it said. Stating that “it has become fashionable to cite aggressive bidding as the reason for the collapse of road sector awards”, MoRTH said the impact of aggressive bidding could have been contained if MoEF and DoFS had not acted in the way they did.