The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) awarded a whopping 49 projects totalling 7,500 km last financial year. but this fiscal, in the first six months, the authority has managed to award just four projects measuring 560 km. NHAI attributes this situation to economic slowdown.
Infrastructure companies, who grabbed every road project on offer last fiscal, are now not showing interest to take up these projects.
None of the projects awarded last fiscal was on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis, where NHAI would have had to bear all the costs. All the awards were on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis, where the bidders shouldered the entire burden. In fact, for as many as 32 of these projects, the bidders had also offered premium totalling `3,000 crore.
The Eastern Peripheral Expressway (ring road to the eastern side of Delhi) project, worth Rs3,000 crore, did not find a single taker. JN Singh, member (Finance), NHAI, blames it on the apparent economic slowdown.
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