Road Ministry expresses hopes on EPC mode to pick momentum in road construction

19 Aug 2013 Evaluate

Amid a poor performance in road development and consequent scaling down of the annual target to almost half at 5,000 km for 2013-14, the Road Transport and Highways Ministry has pinned hopes on engineering- procurement-construction (EPC) mode for project awards to pick momentum in road construction. The Ministry has already clarified that it has decided to adopt this road building approach for projects which are not viable on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis. All public funded National Highways projects, and centrally sponsored road works, costing more than Rs 10 crore would henceforth be awarded on EPC mode of contract, it notified.

In the previous fiscal, road ministry awarded only 1,400 km of projects against a target of 9,500 km and had cited reasons like lukewarm response by the bidders owing to a number of factors including delay in clearances. Further, it has subsequently scaled down its projects award target by nearly half to 5,000 km for the current fiscal.  Meanwhile, in the wake continued dismal show in award of projects by the Ministry, the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) envisages construction of 20,000 km of two-lane National Highways based on EPC mode.

The Government has adopted the EPC mode of construction to ensure implementation of projects to specified Standards with a fair degree of certainty relating to cost and time and with a view to enabling a transparent, fair and competitive roll out of National Highway projects. The EPC mode assigns the responsibility for investigation, design and construction to contractors for a lump sum price awarded through competitive bidding, wherein provision for index-based price variation is made. Further, under the EPC model, the government spends the entire money required to build roads which may prove lucrative to builders.

© 2026 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×