The Centre is most likely to give a go-ahead to a proposal for setting up a company, National Highways Construction Company limited for building roads in border areas and northeastern regions in a meeting scheduled for Thursday.
The Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs is most likely to approve the Road Ministry’s proposal of setting up a new company to oversee construction work of roads in border areas and in the north eastern region of the country, a source aware of the development said. “National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) mainly does road projects on build, own and operate basis all over the country and this proposed company will focus only on constructing border roads and highways in Northeast and border States,” said an official from Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
“The company will be answerable to the ministry. Road projects in north-east, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be under the supervision and close monitoring of the board,” he said The official said that the board will be particularly useful in supervising construction activities, particularly in upper reaches of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, where immense work is underway.
“The uncertain weather conditions in June-July this year destroyed a lot of road ways in these states. lot of realignment and redevelopment activity is underway. All this new activity is proposed to be under the jurisdiction of the new board,” said the official. “This will not just help in speeding up projects and but also help in ensuring that agencies carrying out the work swiftly, without sitting on funds,” said the official. Initially, the Government plans to put in about Rs 30 crore in the company and expand it eventually. At present the country’s road network is 33 lakh km, of which over 79,000 km are National Highways.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Roads is also hopeful of getting the CCEA approval for four more crucial highway proposals including Ambala-Kaithal highway in Haryana and Thiruvananthapuram bypass besides financial approval of Rs 6000 crore for four road projects in Jammu and Kashmir. “Since the model code is already in force, we have also sought the Election Commission’s nod as these are not new projects. We just need more funding as delays would only result in cost escalation and since most of these projects are being built by the private developers, the Govt will have to pay them in annuity mode,” said the official.