Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday called a review meeting of the National Highway Development Project, comprising golden quadrangle and north-south and east-west corridor. The National Highways Authority of India will update Vajpayee about the progress and future plan regarding the NHDP project.
The meeting will be attended by surface transport minister Rajnath Singh, Task Force on Infrastructure deputy chairman K C Pant, NHAI chairman Deepak Dasgupta, road transport and highway secretary Ashok Joshi and other officials.
One NHAI official told Business Standard the highway authority would brief the Prime Minister about the ongoing projects and projects to be taken up in coming years. NHAI would inform him that the NHDP programme has been started and substantial progress made, he added.
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On Wednesday, in a prelude to the Prime Minister's review meeting, Dasgupta informed Pant that the contract for the 3,000 km of golden quadrangle project would be awarded in the current financial year. Dasgupta further said project preparation for the entire golden quadrangle has been completed.
In a meeting with Pant and secretary, Prime Minister's Office, N K. Singh, Dasgupta was asked by the former to maintain a daily schedule on the progress of NHDP project rather than keep a weekly schedule. Pant told Dasgupta that no slippage from the schedule of the NHDP project would be allowed.
In case of any problem with the state governments, NHAI was asked by Pant to get back to the task force. NHAI plans to complete a substantial part of golden quadrangle by 2003.
The total cost of NHDP project is pegged at Rs 58,000 crore. Of this, Rs 20,000 crore will come from the cess fund and another Rs 20,000 crore would be raised by taking loans from international agencies like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank.
While NHAI would raise another Rs 12,000 crore from market borrowings, the remaining
Rs 6,000 is expected to come from the private companies.
On an average, NHAI expects to get a $200 million loan from ADB and a $400 million World Bank loan every year for the NHDP project.
NHAI has negotiated a $450 million loan from the World Bank for four-laning the 477 km of national highway connecting Agra and Calcutta (National Highway 2). NHAI expects to get clearance from the World Bank Board for the $450m loan, the first tranche of an overall $950 million loan, by June 30. Dasgupta was in Washington to negotiate the loan.
After the clearance of first tranche, NHAI would negotiate for a second tranche of $500 million from the World Bank.