Recently, the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure sanctioned four highway projects valued at more than Rs 2,500 crore It seems that the minister for road transport and highways Kamal Nath’s foreign trips are finally proving fruitful as investors from Canada and Australia have shown interest to fund Indian road projects.
Mr Nath confirmed the news and keeping it short said that Canadian and Australian investors are finding infrastructure and road projects in the subcontinent to be a lucrative investment options. Earlier this month, Mr Nath met with the Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Pte to create a fund of up to Rs 94 crore for financing projects in the road and transport sector.
Till date, around 142 road projects aggregating to a length of 10,518 km have been awarded through the build operate and transfer (BOT) route. The cumulative value of the projects stands at Rs 977 crore.
 Four highway projects approved
Under phase III of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI) recently sanctioned four highway projects valued at more than Rs 2,500 crore. The four projects will be implemented in five states, comprising West Bengal (WB), Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh (MP).
“It is sad that national highways in India, which has the second largest road network in the world, make up for around a minimal 2% of the total road length but carries 40% of the total traffic. In view of this overloading of vehicles and rapid traffic growth (estimated at 8-10% annually), the Centre has decided to increase the length of the highways as well as bring about qualitative improvements. The recently-approved highway projects will definitely ease traffic congestion and will accelerate freight movement,” says a senior official of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), on conditions of anonymity, in a telephonic interview to a Times Journal of Construction and Design (TJCD) correspondent.
Consider the following project break-up of the four highways approved:
The four aforementioned highway projects will be built based on the design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) route.
Jeeta Bandopadhyay |
