Ministry of Road Transport & Highways sets steep targets for 2016-17

Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has fixed a 2.5 times increase in the target for award and construction of National Highways for the year 2016-17. Encouraged by the good performance of his Ministry in 2015-16, Gadkari expressed confidence that the pace of development that was established last year will result in even better outcomes during the current year. The Minister has set a target of 25,000 km of National Highways to be awarded in 2016- 17 as against the 10,000 km awarded in 2015-16. The construction target has been set at 15,000 km as against the 6000 km constructed last year. Of the total length of National Highways targeted for award, 15,000 km would fall under the target of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and 10,000 km under the target of the Ministry and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). NHAI’s target for construction has been fixed at 8000 km while for the Ministry and NHIDCL, the target is 7000 km . The year 2015-16 has been one of very positive outcomes for the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Works on a length of more than 10,000 km were awarded for the very first time. The completion of construction of 6000 km marked a year-over-year increase of nearly 36 %. The speeding up of road projects has been made possible due to several policy interventions which include the Ministry being empowered to decide mode of delivery, increased threshold for project approval, enhanced inter-ministerial coordination Exit Policy, promoting innovative project implementation models like Hybrid Annuity Model , amendments to the Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for BOT projects, segregation of Civil Cost from Capital Cost for NH projects for appraisal & approval, rationalized compensation to concessionaires for languishing NH projects in BOT mode for delays not attributable to them, delegation of powers to Chief Engineers regarding periodic renewal, delegation of powers to MORTH ROs regarding utility shifting and delegation of powers to evaluate and award tenders of upto Rs 300 cr.