Despite delays, ITNL will start six highways next fiscal

IL&FS Transportation Networks (ITNL) hopes to commission six of its highway projects as scheduled in 2011-12 notwithstanding procedural delays, said executive director Mukund Sapre.

He said in some projects there were longer than expected delays in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) approving the appointed date after the company submitted the financial closure documents.

Appointed date is the date on which financial closure is achieved and it is also considered to be the date of concession of a project.

Among the projects ITNL plans to bring on-stream next fiscal are national highway stretches in Ranchi-Hazaribagh, Pune-Sholapur and Moradabad-Bareilly, totalling Rs4,255 crore and 1,412 lane kms.

Sapre said it normally does not take more than a month for the NHAI to set the appointed date but in these projects it took more than six months.

“But we began work once we achieved closure so by the time the date was set we had already mobilised all our equipment and started construction. So there should be no time overruns,” Sapre said.

The other three projects are Phase-II of its Thiruvananthapuram city roads project, Phase-I of Jharkhand Road Development and one in Spain.

ITNL is India’s biggest highway developer with a portfolio of 22 projects with a total length of over 12,000 kms. ITNL has 10 operational roads.

K Ramchand, managing director, ITNL, said not many road projects have been bid out in the past few months. “NHAI is in a state of flux. State highways will be the driver in the near future though they can’t replace national highways,” he said.

Some of the states the company operates in, such as Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, are going to the polls in the coming months.

NHAI planned to award about 200 projects this fiscal but has so far awarded about one-third of them. There has also been uncertainty over Brijeshwar Singh’s replacement for the NHAI chairman’s post. He was set to retire in August but was given an extension till December 31.

RS Gujral, secretary, ministry of road transport & highways, is currently holding the additional charge as chairman of the apex body.

ITNL has bids worth Rs56,904 crore at the request for qualification (RFQ) stage and Rs 7,570 crore at the request for proposal (RFP) stage. RFQ precedes RFP.