The government is open to buying equity in some of the 189 stalled highway projects where Rs 1.8 lakh crore is locked up due to myriad pending clearances, in a bid to jumpstart the highway sector, which it believes can push up the country’s growth rate by at least 2 per cent over the next two years.

The NDA government has also decided to put all public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the road sector on hold for two to three years as just a few infrastructure firms have any capacity to invest in new projects.

CPI state secretary K Narayana on Sunday said  that though widening of roads has helped in cutting down time taken to reach different places, suitable safety measures to control accidents on highways is not taken. “If a vehicle breaks down, it is parked on the road as there is no other place on highways, because of this incidence of accidents is increasing,” said Narayana, speaking at an all party meeting organised by his party on ‘Road accident and private bus operators’ negligence’.The meeting organised by the CPI on Sunday had representatives of Communist party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M)) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) who discussed the measures that need to be taken to avoid bus incidents such as that of Volvo bus accident at Kothakota, Mahbubnagar.

Pointing out that blaming drivers for all the accidents will not help in finding actual reasons of accidents, Y Venkateswara Rao, state secretariat member, CPI (M) said, “It will not help in-depth analysis of the problem”. He suggested that the APSRTC should run its bus services in areas where there are good chances of generating income.

Family members of the victims who got burnt in the bus accident demanded that bodies of the victims should be handed over to them as soon as possible.  “We immediately reached the accident spot and received the body of my brother Akshay Singh. But when we reached Jadcherla, we got a call from the police that the body should be taken to Osmania hospital. Till now we did not get back the body,” lamented Ashish, brother of Akshay Singh, a software engineer who lost his life in the bus accident.

K Narayana also suggested that apart from the bus operators, government should also provide compensation to victims of bus accidents and that in buses which travel long distances, drivers should not drive for more than four hours and that a traffic police van should regularly patrol highways.

Commerce minister Anand Sharma has said that work on a highway to link India with Myanmar and Thailand should start soon. This is welcome. But the government has to be more ambitious.The proposed highway, starting from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand, will pass through Myanmar. It should also turn northwards and connect with Kunming, the biggest city of the province of Yunnan in China.

China is already working on ambitious highway-building projects linking coastal Myanmar to Yunnan and it makes great sense to link the highway from India with this. That way, trade would open up between eastern India all the way to landlocked southern China, Myanmar and Thailand. India should also negotiate with Bangladesh for this highway to pass through its territory.

That way, instead of terminating traffic and commerce in the northeast, the highway could run all the way to Kolkata. Once there, it would be easy to link the East-West Corridor with the India-Myanmar-China-Thailand highway.

Immense trade potential could open up if, say, Pune is connected to Kunming via one long, continuous highway. Along the way, goods can also be dropped off in markets in Bangladesh, the north-east, Myanmar and on to Thailand.

Southern Asia is among the world’s least-integrated regions. It was not always thus. Before Partition, south and south-east Asia was a closely networked hub of commerce and services. In the 1930s, the British built a road between Burma and southern China.

During WWII, American general Joe Stilwell built another one from Ledo in Assam to Kunming, to supply Chinese fighting the Japanese. The Stilwell road, too, should be revived, repaired and used extensively to boost trade and commerce between India, China and south-east Asia.

Source-http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

“Without adequate investment in road and railway transport infrastructure, private investment only in building new ports will be in vain. Better transport infrastructure will ensure higher manufacturing activities too”, he said at Transport Infra Odisha-2013, a conference organised by Indian Chambers of Commerce (ICC) here to highlight different issues of the sector.

 

 

The last three years have been remarkable for Indian road infrastructure: projects of 15,000 km were awarded during 2010-13. Yet, there is a huge task ahead. A decade ago, the bulk of the programme was done via the public funding route, today, 90% of highway development is undertaken via public-private partnership (PPP): on a design, build, finance and operate basis, where the private sector is involved in the entire project life cycle and shares commercial risks.

 

Surprisingly, many bids received did not ask for viability-gap funding and, instead, went for a hefty premium. While such flamboyant bids were a recognition of the unforeseen and untapped multiplier and induction effects of highways networking, they underlined the importance of private funding and effective implementation of contracts.

 

Some of the most strategically important cities of India are being connected now: for instance, Ahmedabad-Vadodara and Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad would connect with Delhi-Jaipur-Ajmer-Kishangarh-Mumbai-Surat-Vadodara to complete the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Similarly, Gwalior-Shivpuri and Shivpuri-Dewas would fill critical links for another alternate corridor connecting Delhi and Mumbai via commercial Indore. Similarly, Amravati-Jalgaon-Dhule would help connect Hazira port in Gujarat to Paradip port in Odisha and eventually mirror the East-West corridor along India’s economic hinterland of Gujarat and Maharashtra all the way to Kolkata.

 

But when the economy hits a speed breaker, the projected network externalities appear exaggerated and committed financiers pull back. When a single project languishes, it has a domino effect on all others whose viability suddenly becomes suspect. In normal times, there are challenges of financing because of an asset-liability mismatch and exhaustion of exposure limits of banks. Today, highway development requires stronger commitment to tide over wavering macro fundamentals. Besides, there are many roads of low-commercial viability in economically-backward areas that can only be undertaken through public funding.

 

But the most critical challenge today is on the implementation side. The National Highways Authority of India is overloaded and focused largely on award of projects. Contract management and oversight to ensure quality construction, maintenance and completion has taken a backseat under the PPP model. The private sector faces a dearth of managerial resources that can competently handle complex issues involved in coordinating with a multiplicity of governmental and local agencies.

 

While PPP models are useful to support fiscal constraints, they are not perfect panaceas. The government cannot afford to depend on the efficiency of the PPP developer. The former needs to nudge, cajole and guide the concessionaire and work with him to make him fulfil his commitment without compromising on standards, quality and timeliness. The regulatory capture of the independent engineer is a reality that cannot be ignored and discounted.

 

Further, the involvement of state governments has been missing despite their key role in facilitating acquisition of land, shifting of utilities and providing security and encroachment-free passage for uninterrupted right of way. States, along with their city governments, need to build their own connectivity corridors and spruce up main district roads and municipal roads by adopting innovative methodologies that leverage land and development rights. States should establish Road Development Corporations and vest them with adequate authority and resources. Having the chief minister as the chairman and the chief secretary as the vice-chairman, a model adopted in Madhya Pradesh in early 2004, will ensure highway development gets strategic support.

 

The challenge is speedy award of remaining highways and effective implementation of already awarded ones. Development of high-speed corridors between important urban centres and specialised connectivity projects is the need of the hour. It is not enough just to have a highway that connects two important points.

 

When commercial competitiveness is defined by the speed and reduced cost of transaction, it is imperative to have safe access-controlled travel and effective last-mile connectivity.

(The writer is an IAS officer. Views are personal)

Source-http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com