Road users of nine highways have to bear the extra burden of `28,096 crore as toll thanks to National Highways Authority of India’s largesse to major developers by giving higher concession period. Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its latest report, revealed that developers like Reliance Infra and larsen and Toubro have ‘unduly’ benefited due to NHAI’s flawed policies.
Out of these nine NHs, Reliance Infra got Delhi-Agra and Pune-Satara contracts, while l&T, IRB and Varanasi-Aurangabad Tollway Pvt ltd (Soma Isolux) were the other beneficiaries. “While fixing the concession period, NHAI considered only tollable traffic instead of total volume of traffic, which is carrying capacity of the road. This resulted in fixing longer concession periods which put extra burden on road users,” said the CAG report on Implementation of Public Private Partnership Projects in National Highways Authority of India placed in Parliament on December 23, 2014.
The Performance Audit covered 94 projects under the four phases of National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) constituting 45.41 per cent of total 207 Build-Operate-Transfer projects awarded as on 31.3.2012. “During these extended concession periods, the concessionaires would collect toll at least to the tune of `28,095.54 crore (NPV: `3,233.71 crore), while the roads would become congested for the toll paying users,” the report said.
The report also shows that the NHAI failed to start toll collection on some stretches forgoing `259 crore and also incurred `857 crore costs due to faulty project reports. The Government auditor made it clear that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways accepted the “audit observation regarding incorrect adoption of tollable traffic instead of total traffic for determination of concession period.”
The CAG report said that the NHAI incurred a loss of Rs 856.80 crore on account of change of scope (design) in 23 projects, out of which Rs 662.53 crore was due to faulty Detailed Project Report or Feasibility Report.
The auditors blamed the NHAI for not adhering to basic accounting principles and accounting standards issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Resultantly, Financial Statements did not depict overall correct profitability of NHAI.
It also said that the Ministry had set a target for widening and up gradation of National Highways (NH) at 20 km per day but NHAI’s achievement during 2009-10 to 2012-13 ranged between 3.06 km and 17.81 km per day only.