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Twenty stalled highway projects entailing Rs 27,000 crore investment are likely to be executed soon with the Supreme Court allowing delinking of environment clearance from forest approval, a government official said today.
"Twenty road projects, stuck long for want of environment clearances, would be executed soon after clearance from MoEF in the wake of Supreme Court allowing modification in norms to delink environment clearance from forest," a top Road Transport and Highways Ministry official told PTI.
The total project cost of these projects is Rs 27,000 crore, he added.
The apex court order is a big relief considering many road sector projects were stuck due to delays in green clearances, the official added.
A Supreme Court bench in a judgement yesterday had allowed delinking the two clearances as sought by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
After this verdict, a road project can start work once it gets environment approval. Earlier, the forest clearance was mandatory before start of the work on roads stretches falling in forest and non-forest areas.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had moved the Supreme Court on January 5 seeking delinking of both the clearances.
"In a high powered meeting it was decided that MoEF would move an application before the Supreme Court and the NHAI will withdraw its petition of intervention and accordingly the NHAI had moved for withdrawal which was accepted by the apex court," the official said.
The court order in favour of delinking both the clearances has come as a major relief to the Ministry which is facing problems in award of projects and is unlikely to meet the target of awarding 9,500 km for the fiscal, the official added.
Contracts for only over 1,100 km could be given by the government in the first three quarters of 2012-13 due to various reasons including delays in green clearances.
The problems got aggravated with major infrastructure firms pulling out of projects.
While GVK Power and Infrastructure announced termination of its contract with NHAI for building Rs 7,500 crore major highway -- Shivpuri-Dewas Expressway in Madhya Pradesh-- another firm GMR Infrastructure had cancelled its contract with the authority for building the Kishangarh-Udaipur- Ahmedabad highway.
The NHAI had sought Supreme Court intervention following this and 20 other projects facing delays due to delay in forest clearances.
Sources had said many more companies might withdraw from road projects following the exit of big players.
The bidders, as per officials, are reluctant to bid for NHAI projects due to reluctance of banks to finance infrastructure projects.
Amid concerns over the reluctance by banks to give loans to infrastructure projects, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also asked the Highways Ministry to refer the matter to the PMEAC so that the issue can be resolved.
