NHAI: NHAI spots 19 projects to revive private participation

NEW DELHI: Stepping up the Centre’s efforts to revive private investment in the highways sector, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has identified 19 projects, involving a cumulative investment of around Rs 56,000 crore, to offer them in build-operate-transfer (BOT-toll) mode.
These highway projects, covering around 900 km, are spread across several states, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, a top NHAI official said.A maximum of 13 such projects to be developed in BOT (Toll) mode are in Maharashtra.
In BOT (Toll) projects, contractors recover their investment from toll and also the contracts are for a longer period (15-20 years). This makes the private players more accountable for the quality of construction.
“We have learnt a lot from the success and failures of the BOT (Toll) and the necessary changes are being introduced in the contract conditions to make it lucrative for private players. There will be a meeting soon with the stakeholders to expedite the roll out of BOT projects,” said the NHAI official. He added that all the identified projects are financially viable considering the traffic flow on the stretches.