Kamal Nath’s 20km/day goal still a dream

While the highways construction sector awaits its impending review by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh slated for February 12, Union road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath has hinted yet another delay in the ambitious Work Plan I. The plan envisaged awarding 125 projects worth Rs 1,00,000 crore by the end of this fiscal. The completion target of the plan aiming to connect 12,000 km was deferred by the ministry from November last year to June this year.

Nath has now pruned the target to be achieved by this June. “We will award projects spanning 8,500 km by June,” said Nath.

However, keeping in mind the pace at which the projects have been awarded over the last few months, this may also be a distant dream for the government.

While Nath had stated the need to have 20,000 km of work in progress to achieve the target of 20km/day, or 7,000 km in a year, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been able to award only eight projects spanning a mere 749 km since Nath took over in May last year. 

Nath also said, “We will achieve the target of constructing at a pace of 20km/day by June. We are currently implementing highways at a pace of 10km/day, which may have come down a little due to extreme fog and cold in the northern India, but will soon pick up.” At the time Nath took over, the pace was at 3-4 km/day.
The highway developers, on the other hand, feel financing the projects is a bigger concern than awarding contracts. “The government may award as many projects as they want. But in the current scenario, financing must also be looked into. Loans for highways construction is categorised as unsecured. Highways being tangible assets, our loans should be in the secure category, so that we are able to tap insurance funds,” said M Murali, director general, National Highways Builders Federation.

Meanwhile, following a meeting with the visiting Turkish Minister for Transport Binali Yildirim, Nath said, “We have decided to form a joint study group with Turkey to see where we can collaborate in terms of technology and best practices in the road construction sector.”