punjabimunda
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2012
- Messages
- 542
- Reaction score
- 0
Highway projects put on fast track - The Economic Times
NEW DELHI: After being ridiculed by the Opposition for derailing the highway development during its first innings, the UPA-II has revived the sector . With huge interest shown by the private sector to invest in highway development, the government has crossed the target of awarding at least 20km of highways per day during the current financial year
- something that is likely to push the highway construction before the next general election.
In 2011-12 , the highways ministry awarded 7,400 km, which will be implemented under the public private partnership ( PPP) mode. This includes 51 projects awarded by NHAI with a total investment of Rs 61,000 crore. This investment will have a huge impact on job generation in the next three years.
The government has been claiming that continuous awarding of at least 7,300 km per year for three years would translate into construction of 20km highways per day - the target set by the government.
However, what is most encouraging for the government is huge interest shown by the private developers in the highways projects. Over 60% of NHAI projects have gone with premium. In case of such projects , the developers not only invest in the project, raise finance but also pay an amount upfront to the government annually . This also increases by 5% for the entire concession period.
The NHAI has got approximately Rs 3,000 crore as premium during this financial year, which would help improve the authority's financial ability to undertake more not-so financially lucrative highway development works in the next few years. This is for the first time in the history since NHAI was created that such huge premium has been earned.
"The trend of projects being bagged with premium shows the high interest of developers in highway projects. We are getting unexpected premium in projects where we had projected government grant to make these projects financially viable. Moreover, in almost all other projects the developers are quoting much less grant than what we had projected," said NHAI member (finance) J Singh.
NEW DELHI: After being ridiculed by the Opposition for derailing the highway development during its first innings, the UPA-II has revived the sector . With huge interest shown by the private sector to invest in highway development, the government has crossed the target of awarding at least 20km of highways per day during the current financial year
- something that is likely to push the highway construction before the next general election. In 2011-12 , the highways ministry awarded 7,400 km, which will be implemented under the public private partnership ( PPP) mode. This includes 51 projects awarded by NHAI with a total investment of Rs 61,000 crore. This investment will have a huge impact on job generation in the next three years.
The government has been claiming that continuous awarding of at least 7,300 km per year for three years would translate into construction of 20km highways per day - the target set by the government.
However, what is most encouraging for the government is huge interest shown by the private developers in the highways projects. Over 60% of NHAI projects have gone with premium. In case of such projects , the developers not only invest in the project, raise finance but also pay an amount upfront to the government annually . This also increases by 5% for the entire concession period.
The NHAI has got approximately Rs 3,000 crore as premium during this financial year, which would help improve the authority's financial ability to undertake more not-so financially lucrative highway development works in the next few years. This is for the first time in the history since NHAI was created that such huge premium has been earned.
"The trend of projects being bagged with premium shows the high interest of developers in highway projects. We are getting unexpected premium in projects where we had projected government grant to make these projects financially viable. Moreover, in almost all other projects the developers are quoting much less grant than what we had projected," said NHAI member (finance) J Singh.
