Initiatives to revive and accelerate projects
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has accomplished construction of 3,979-km of national highways in the financial Year 2019-20, the highest ever highway construction achieved in a financial year.
In 2018-19, NHAI completed 3,380-km of highways.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ highway development programme Bharatmala Pariyojana includes development of about 65,000 km of highways.
Under Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana, the Ministry has approved implementation of 34,800-km of national highways in 5 years with an outlay of Rs.5,35,000 crore.
NHAI has been mandated development of about 27,500-km of national highways under Bharatmal Pariyojna Phase-I.
In order to accelerate the pace of construction, a large number of initiatives have been taken to revive the stalled projects and expedite completion of new projects:
• Streamlining of land acquisition and acquisition of major portion of land prior to invitation of bids.
• Award of projects after adequate project preparation in terms of land acquisition, clearances etc.
• Disposal of cases in respect of Change of Scope (CoS) and Extension of Time (EoT) in a time bound manner
• Procedure for approval of General Arrangement Drawing for ROBs simplified and made online.
• Close coordination with other Ministries and State Governments
• One-time fund infusion
• Regular review at various levels and identification/ removal of bottlenecks in project execution
• Proposed exit for Equity Investors
• Securitization of road sector loans
• Disputes Resolution mechanism revamped to avoid delays in completion of projects. fiinews.com
