In a fresh initiative to expedite highways’ construction work, the Centre has decided to review the NH projects statewise. The new initiative has been adopted to resolve the hindrances in the construction of NH on a fast-track basis and to ensure seamless construction of Highways in the country which during the last couple of fiscal years has seen a poor construction rate.
A top Ministry of Road Transport and Highways official said that the aim of conducting critical review meetings of NH projects in respective States is to get a clear picture in a particular State. “There are many NH projects which get stalled due to bottlenecks within the State. This will help both the States as well as road network progress gradually. The States too will get into a competitive mode towards improvement of road infrastructure,” the official said. In the present format, the review of projects is done on the basis of NHAI regions.
As per this initiative, training programmes for the officials of the State PWDs on the Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) mode will also be organised along with the review meetings.
Further, in its review meeting on Wednesday, the MoRTH also decided to adopt the EPC mode for NH which is not viable on PPP (Public-Private Partnership) basis. The 12th Plan envisages construction of 20,000 kilometres of two-lane NH based on EPC mode.
“Highway projects, which have become unviable under the PPP mechanism for the developers, can now be built under the new Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode. The government has adopted the EPC mode of construction to ensure implementation of projects to specified standards with a fair degree of certainty in terms of cost and time, and with a view to enable a transparent, fair and competitive roll out of NH projects,” said a MoRTH official.
The EPC mode assigns the responsibility for investigation, design and construction to contractors for a lump sum price awarded through competitive bidding, wherein provision for index-based price variation is made.