Since builders are not coming forward due to fund crunch in the present economic environment, it is not possible to construct 20 km of roads in a day, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister CP Joshi said on January 24. Joshi said that the government’s past experience says it can achieve this target only when it is in a position to award 7,000 km per year for three consecutive years.
But looking at this particular scenario of builders’ inability, the government is not able to award projects, Joshi said. He said at present, builders, who were bidding for projects aggressively in the past, were not coming forward now as they were facing fund crunch owing to various reasons. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has barely managed to award about 1,000 km of contracts so far this fiscal as against a target of 9,500 km.
The UPA government in 2009 had unveiled its ambitious target of building 35,000 km of highways in five years, which translates into constructing 20 km of roads in a day.
So far, the target has not been achieved and even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had expressed concerns over it and the Ministry is building about 12 km of roads a day. Last week NHAI Chairman RP Singh has also said that achieving 20 km target was not possible and there was no point in rushing up with the projects.
The Prime Minister had said that raising equity was a major concern for awarding road projects of 10,000 km a year as it required Rs 90,000 crore investment, of which one-third (Rs 30,000 crore) should be private equity. For this Joshi said that looking into present scenario what the Prime Minister said is correct. Joshi, however added that if next year things change then certainly the government can say that it is approaching to 20 km per day.
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