By Express News Service – ROURKELA
Faced with inordinate delay in land acquisition and rehabilitation of people to be displaced by upgradation of NH-143 and 520 running through Sundargarh, Keonjhar and Deogarh districts, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has taken up the issue with respective Collectors to expedite the process.
Sources said NHAI regional officer LP Padhi, who wrapped up his two-day visit on Saturday, along with other NHAI officials, met Sundargarh Collector Bhupendra Singh Poonia and his Keonjhar counterpart BP Sahoo requesting them to expedite land acquisition process.
He also discussed various issues related to NHAI concessionaires.
An NHAI official said besides land acquisition, they are facing problems in getting permission for felling trees. Besides, the forest land diversion proposals are moving at a snail’s pace.
After a meeting at Rajgangpur, Sundargarh Collector said the land acquisition process is in compensation disbursement stage for NH-143 which is to be four-laned from Birmitrapur to Rajamunda. He assured of removing the hurdles for NH-520 passing through Koida and Lahunipara blocks of Bonai sub-division.
NHAI Manager (Technical) MM Sahu said the NH-143 stretch of around 88 kms from Birmitrapur to Rajamunda would be four-laned while the remaining stretch of around 37 kms from Rajamunda to Barkote in Deogarh district would be two-laned.
The Birmitrapur-Barkote Tollway Ltd, a subsidiary of NHAI concessionaire Gammon Infrastructure Ltd, would execute the project at an estimated cost of ` 778.6 crore and the project includes second Brahmani bridge at Rourkela, Sahu said. It would be completed on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis.
Regarding the NH-520 project, NHAI Manager (Technical) Debabrata Kundu said they have apprised Keonjhar Collector of delay in the project and he has assured of necessary support.
Kundu further said of 96 kms stretch from Rimuli to Rajamunda, running through Keonjhar and Sundargarh districts, around 84 kms would be four-laned and remaining 12 kms two-laned.
Source-http://www.newindianexpress.com
Press Trust of India | Chandigarh
Kaithal-Ambala national highway would be four-laned at a cost of Rs 728 crore, a state minister said today.
Expressing gratitude towards Prime Minister Manmohan Singhand UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for approval of the project, Haryana Public Works (Buildings and Roads) Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said that this 90-km-long national highway would especially benefit three districts of Ambala, Kaithal and Kurukshetra.
He said separate bypasses would be constructed for the towns of Kaithal, Pehowa and Ismailabad which were situated between Kaithal and Ambala.
With the approval of this project, the long-standing demand of the people of the area has been fulfilled, he said, in an official release here.
Surjewala said that for the development of Kaithal an 18-km-long separate bypass would be constructed.
Also, a corridor from Kotputli to Ambala at a cost of Rs 1300 crore would be setup which would open new business and employment opportunities for the residents of Kaithal, he added.
Source-http://www.business-standard.com
TNN |
VADODARA: Motorists will no longer have to face the nightmare when they reach the Dumad crossroads on the national highway in the city. The junction also lead to frequent accidents and figured in the list of places prone to accidents prepared by the city police.
The intersection on the national highway has roads leading to the city, Vadodara-Ahmedabad Expressway and the Savli road. Motorists had to be careful while negotiating the intersection due to traffic movement in multiple directions. The intersection was also a busy one and witnessed movement of heavy vehicles.
Officials at the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) said that the present ‘at grade’ junction will be completely done away with. An interchange with two integrating flyovers at Dumad and Vadodara has been planned to meet the growing traffic demands of people travelling from and to Savli, Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Surat directions at this junction.
The proposed flyover is having six arms and service roads are planned to get access to this interchange. Sources said that it was expected that the work would be completed within two years. The work is a part of the six laning of Ahmedabad-Vadodara Section of the NH-8.
Union minister of state for road transport and highways Dr Tushar Chaudhary will lay the foundation stone kicking off the work on the intersection. Chaudhary will also inaugurate and an electronic toll collection plaza at Vadodara toll booth of the Vadodara-Ahmedabad Expressway. Electronic toll collection is based on the Radio Frequency Identificaiton (RFID) technology.
A RFID tag that will essentially be a prepaid tag will be affixed in the upper central portion of the vehicle’s windscreen. It will work as a prepaid toll account and there will be automatic toll deduction when a vehicle crosses a toll plaza. The system was launched earlier this year at Mumbai.
TNN |
ITANAGAR: The Union ministry of road transport and highways has approved the construction of 6,418 km of road under Phase A and the Arunachal package of the Special Accelerated Road Development Project-North East (SARDP-NE), minister of state for road transport and highways, Sarvey Sathyanarayana has said.”Of the 10,141 km stretch to be developed under the project, 6,418 km have been approved by the Centre for implementation under Phase A of SARDP-NE and the Arunachal package of roads and highways, while a detailed project report has been sought for the remaining 3,723 km under Phase B of the programme,” the minister explained when questioned by Lok Sabha member Takam Sanjoy, official sources said on Wednesday.
The minister informed that Phase A and the Arunachal package should be completed by March 2017. While conceding that delays in land acquisition, obtaining environment and forest clearance and poor mobilization by contractors have affected timely completion of infrastructure projects in the northeast, the minister assured that non-performing contractors have been debarred from participating in future works.
“The ministry has posted one additional director general for the northeast region at Guwahati, who will be assisted by three chief engineers posted at Guwahati, Agartala and Itanagar, to expedite the formalities before construction,” he added.
Dipak Kumar Dash, TNN |
NEW DELHI: The PM-appointed C Rangarajan committee has recommended a uniform formula of 75% cut in promised annual premium payment for all highway projects for the first three years to revive over three dozen stalled and stressed projects.
The annual premium payment will increase substantially during later part of the contract period so that NHAI does not lose any revenue that developers had quoted while bagging projects. The policy aims to recover the entire premium amount three years before the contract ends. The norm will be same for both six-laning and four-laning of projects. Huge reduction in premium payment in the first three years will come as a big relief to developers since they need more capital investment during construction period. Premium is the annual upfront revenue that developers promise to pay to NHAI, which increases by 5% annually during the contract period.
Rangarajan has sent the proposal to departments including Planning Commission, NHAI, highways and finance ministries for feedback latest by Monday.
The recommendations address concerns of both developers and NHAI. While suggesting that there should be no “penalty” on developers for availing this one time dispensation as it was suggested by the finance minister P Chidambaram, the committee has said that beneficiaries can’t make any claims on NHAI for delay in project take off due to non-fulfillment of condition like statutory clearances. There were fears that developers may submit huge claim on NHAI for rising project cost due to delays attributed to non-availability of land, clearances and shifting of utilities.
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Highway
The process of documentation for construction of a proposed elevated road connecting between the business district of Bandra-Kurla Complex and Eastern Express Highway is scheduled to commence shortly.
An official of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) said that in another month or so they will commence the process of inviting bids to construct the bridge linking the Eastern Express Highway and LBS Road to Bandra-Kurla Complex.
The project had been conceptualised sometime in 2008, but was later put in the cold storage only to be revived earlier this year.
In 2008, however, the estimated cost of the project stood at Rs125crore, which now stands at Rs300crore.
Now, the bridge will be a cable-stayed one, quite similar to the Bandra Worli Sea Link or the Metro rail bridge over the Western Express Highway in Andheri.
The bridge that will cross River Mithi as well as Central Railway’s main and harbour lines will be erected between Chunabhatti and MTNL junction in Bandra-Kurla Complex. Currently, it takes close to 45 minutes to traverse this distance, but once it is ready in another two years, it will cut short the commuting time to just 10 or 15 minutes.
Authorities claim that this bridge, once it is ready, will negate the need to construct a parallel flyover at Sion Circle. So because the proposed bridge will take care to ease the vehicular traffic.
It will also drastically reduce the traffic congestion on the Sion-Dharavi Link Road – a stretch which is perennially clogged.
Source-http://www.dnaindia.com
| – Notable MPs skip Union minister Oscar Fernandes’ invite |
| AMIT GUPTA |
 |
| Lifeline in limbo: A dilapidated stretch of NH-33 near Tamar |
Ranchi, : Union road transport and highways minister Oscar Fernandes, who invited all 20 MPs of Jharkhand today in New Delhi for a meeting on national highways criss-crossing the state, was greeted by notable absentees, including those from the BJP and JMM, making the attendance sheet politically charged.
Though confirmation of who did and who did not attend the central meeting is trickling in slowly, it is known that BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey, Yashwant Sinha and JMM Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Kumar chose not to go to Delhi.
Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahay of the Congress and Rajya Sabha MP and former state Congress chief Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu, however, attended the meeting that seemed to become a miniature UPA affair.
In the absence of a full show, those who went, voiced their grievances before Fernandes. The Union minister, predictably, promised to fast-track the revival of highways criss-crossing the state.
Jharkhand has a national highway length of 1,850km, of which around 500km — including the 330km-long state lifeline NH-33 and parts of NH-2 — is maintained directly by National Highways Association of India (NHAI). State road construction department (national highways wing) looks after the rest.
Ranchi MP Sahay, also former Union minister, told The Telegraph over phone they had stressed on the dilapidated NH-33 and, to a lesser extent, NH-32 stretches.
Chief minister Hemant Soren, on the other hand, told The Telegraph that NH-33 was not being repaired despite prods.
Asked if he held the view that the powers-that-be in Delhi did not want to repair roads for the fear that Hemant and JMM would get credit, the chief minister, faced with a tight-rope walk of coalition compulsions, kept quiet. “Efforts of even Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh went unheard,” he said.
“The road is under NHAI’s jurisdiction otherwise state government would have thought about investing its own resources to maintain them,” the chief minister added.
Not present at the MPs-only show today, Hemant added he had a discussion with Fernandes on the matter and that he would try to meet the Union minister during his Delhi stay. Hemant is in the national capital till tomorrow.
Sahay said they stressed on pitiable parts of Ranchi-Jamshedpur and Hazaribagh-Barhi stretches of NH-33 and Dhanbad-Purulia-Chandil parts of NH-32. “We requested him to ensure their proper maintenance for the areas alongside to reach their full economic potential,” Sahay said.
The Jharkhand delegation also raised the issue of the “much-needed bypasses” in Chandil and Govindpur-Dhanbad (NH-32) and near Ramgarh district town (NH-33).
Sahay reported Union minister Fernandes was “very cooperative”.
An NHAI senior official told The Telegraph already as many as 29 reminders have been given in past six months or so to the concessionaire, Madhucon Projects Limited, to improve the condition of the existing two-lane stretch between Ranchi and Jamshedpur.
“They are doing the repair work in bits and pieces. But the progress is far below satisfaction,” an NHAI engineer said.
Currently, the onus of major repair and maintenance lie with Madhucon, the agency entrusted with the Rs 1,479-crore four-laning work. In April 2011, Ranchi Expressway Limited, a special purpose vehicle of Madhucon, had signed a concession agreement with NHAI for the widening project under BOT-annuity basis, with a semi-annuity of Rs 133.50 crore. The agency was to complete the project by June 2015 and maintain the road for 15 years. But the work could be started only early this year.
On October 20, Hemant even threatened to take legal action against the agency if it failed to improve the stretch within stipulated deadline of November. November came and went.
Source-http://www.telegraphindia.com
|
BY MATTHIAS WILLIAMS
(The helper of a driver rests on top of his parked truck along a busy highway on the outskirts of New Delhi June 15, 2012.)
(Reuters) – The chairman of India’s largest road construction firm IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd (IRBI.NS) urged the government to invite companies to bid to build and operate dozens of new highways, a step regarded as crucial to economic growth.
India sees ramping up the construction of new roads, power plants and ports as crucial to making its businesses more internationally competitive and lifting economic growth out of its worst slowdown in a decade.
But the private sector’s efforts to build new projects have been derailed by problems ranging from coal and gas supply shortages in the power sector to a throttling bureaucracy and a lack of bank funding in the roads sector.
IRB needs to win new government contracts in order to reverse two consecutive falls in quarterly net profit, Chairman Virendra Mhaiskar told Reuters.
Mhaiskar, who until this year was in the Forbes India list of the country’s 100 richest people, said the state-run National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) should offer up for bidding 20-30 highways previously awarded to companies but which failed to take off.
He said in a phone interview he would like to make bids for new projects worth up to 40 billion rupees in the next 3-6 months to prop up an order book that has shrunk to 70 billion rupees from about 84 billion in May.
“Profit growth will entirely depend on new orders,” Mhaiskar said. “Because if they’re going to exhaust our order book pipeline, then the challenge on the profit remains.”
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Angel Broking say IRB is in a strong position to pick up new orders and both have a “buy” rating on IRB’s stock. However, BoA-ML in November cited a slowdown in new project orders as a concern.
IRB, India’s largest road construction firm by market value, posted a 12 per cent drop in net profit to 1.1 billion rupees in the July-Sept quarter, compared with the same period last year. Its net debt to equity ratio is 2.55:1.
“PRIME CONCERN”
India awarded under 2,000 km (1,240 miles) worth of new road construction contracts in the last fiscal year, which ended in March, against a target of 9,500 km (5,900 miles).
“We have seen very little orders getting announced by the NHAI in the last whole of the year. So that remains a prime concern,” Mhaiskar said.
“We understand their views as well, that they feel that there is sluggishness and they may not get a good response. But the point is: one needs to keep the good work going,” he said.
The NHAI chairman did not respond to a request for comment.
The government has pushed a public-private-partnership (PPP) construction model in which developers bid for projects in exchange for sharing some of the revenue with the state – a way of getting investment without emptying the public purse.
Besides delay in awarding government projects, an economic slowdown and various mining bans in India mean there are fewer cars and trucks than there might have been on the roads to pay tolls – eating into companies’ revenues.
Two of India’s best known infrastructure companies, GMR (GMRI.NS) and GVK (GVKP.NS), have moved to exit high-profile road projects. In response, the government is working on a formula to ease the payments that companies have to pay to the state in exchange for operating highways.
Recent projects have been designed mainly on a model known as “build-operate-transfer” (BOT), where companies build and own highways for a fixed period before handing them over to the government.
“These days bankers have become more cautious in lending to road BOT projects. They want 80 percent of the land in possession before the financial closure of the project could be achieved,” said Viral Shah, an analyst at Angel Broking. (Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Pravin Char)
Source-http://in.reuters.com
Dipak Kumar Dash,TNN
NEW DELHI: Many highway developers, including GMR and GVK, are set to get major relief in next one week as the PM-appointed C Rangarajan committee is likely to recommend reduction and deferment of premium to be paid to NHAI.
The panel is likely to suggest that for six-laning of highway projects, at least 25% reduction in annual premium payment to NHAI during construction period and about 50% during subsequent years. The panel was constituted to come out with a formula to defer the premium payment towards later part of the concession period to make projects viable for developers.
In case of four-laning of projects, the developers don’t have to pay premium during the construction period. During operation and maintenance period, they have to pay minimum 50% of the committed annual premium.
Premium is the annual upfront revenue that the developers have promised to pay to NHAI, while bagging the projects. The promised premium of around Rs 1 lakh crore will come to NHAI in the next 20-30 years, according to the road ministry. While the developers will pay lower amount in the initial years, they have to pay higher amount in the later part of the period to fulfill the commitment.
For both six-laning and four-laning of highway projects, during operation and maintenance period, annual cash flow surplus subsequent to fulfilling debt servicing and other obligations, will have to be used mostly towards premium payment. The objective is to ensure that NHAI gets the entire premium at least three years before the contract period ends, said a source.
Developers were complaining about difficulties in premium payment due to slowdown in traffic amid a weak economy. Many projects, which were awarded could not take off, while many on-going projects were getting stuck. The committee felt that a reduction and deferment of premium payment in the initial period and increasing the amount in the later, when both traffic growth and collection of toll are expected to go up, will help the developers.
Many overbridge and road projects in the city are becoming non-starters as the State government and the Kochi Corporation are scouting for funds to acquire land for the projects. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds only cover the projects’ construction cost.
On an average, a two-lane overbridge can be built for less than Rs.15 crore. But land acquisition and rehabilitation costs within the city may work out to around Rs.100 crore, which is around seven times the project’s cost.
The cost of land acquisition for a two-lane overbridge proposed at Atlantis works out to over Rs.100 crore. Similar is the case with Pachalam overbridge. Both the projects are hanging fire for over a decade, causing hardships to commuters. In the case of Thammanam-Pullepady Road, the cost of building a tarred road is just over Rs.20 crore, while expenditure for acquiring land at 18 metre width works out to over Rs.100 crore. The project cost for Goshree-Mamangalam Road is over Rs.23 crore, while widening the narrow stretch into four or two lane will cost more.
Chairman of the corporation’s town planning committee and former Mayor K.J. Sohan suggested narrowing down of four-lane bridges to two-lane wherever possible so that land acquisition is minimal. “Cost of land acquisition can further be brought down if bridges are built at 1:20 gradient – an elevation of a metre for every 20 metre distance,” he said.
The gradient as per JNNURM norms is 1:30, which would increase the bridge’s length. Though this specification ensures a less-steep bridge, the area of land to be acquired increases.
COST-EFFECTIVE
“Dilution of norms might result in denial of JNNURM funds. Even then, the financial liability on State government and the civic agency concerned would be much lesser for each project,” he said.
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