Minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, under pressure to steer road construction into the fast lane and meet the much-touted 30 km a day target, has set a goal of building 15,000 km of highways this fiscal, two and a half times what was achieved last year of 6,000 km. Of the total length of national highways targeted for award, major will be executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the balance by the ministry directly and the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). NHAI’s target for construction has been fixed at 8,000 km while for the ministry and NHIDCL, the (combined) target is 7,000 km.
The rate of highway construction is around 17 km per day at present. The government has set an ambitious target of constructing 41 km of national highways every day in 2016-17. A statement issued by the Ministry said that the construction of roads quickened by 36 per cent in 2015-16, due to several policy interventions. Some of the measures included more project approvals, enhanced inter-ministerial coordination, exit policy for developers, promoting the Hybrid Annuity Model, amendments to the Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for Build-Own-Transfer projects, among others.
The target for awarding of projects has also been enhanced to 25,000 km for 2016-17, again two and a half times the 10,000 km level accomplished in 2015-16. The Ministry said out of the total award target of 25,000 km, NHAI will award 15,000 km and the remaining 10,000 km will be done by the Ministry.
Gadkari expressed confidence that the pace of development that was established last year will result in even better outcomes during the current year. The government has been trying to enhance the confidence of the potential developers of highway projects and lenders and had met bankers and road contractors in January this year in a bid to move forward over stalled highway projects worth Rs 40,000 crore.
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