Nhai Ordered To Award All Civil Contracts By June

The union surface transport minister, Rajnath Singh, has asked the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to award all civil works with regards to the Golden Quadrilaterals by June, 2001 and has called for strict adherence to the time frame of 40 days for awarding of bid contracts, to check resultant cost escalations. It was also been decided that NHAI would raise Rs 13,800 crore by issuing highway development bonds over the next four years, of which Rs 500 crore would be raised by September 2000. Procedural formalities are in the final stages for the first phase, said an official statement. As per the plan, bonds of Rs 3,100 crore are to be issued for the year 2001-02, Rs 6,200 crore for 2002-03 and Rs 4,000 crore for the year 2003-04, which would be exempted from long-term capital gains under Section 54 EC of the income-tax act. The minister also directed NHAI to take up the "pre-qualification exercise" for the contractors simultaneously with the preparation of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and has called for the adoption of a proactive approach towards the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP). The minister was taking a general review of the working of the NHAI and the progress on the NHDP, during the course of which he directed the officials to ensure that the quality of national highways be kept at "satisfactory levels" and stressed on the proper maintenance of the national highways on a long term basis. During the meeting it emerged that the prioritization study of the North-South and East-West corridors would be completed by October, 2000, the statement said, adding that the Golden Quadrilateral would get completed by the year 2003. The review revealed that out of the total length of 5,952 kilometers, 588 km have already been four-laned by June 2000, while 686 km was under implementation. It was decided that the contract for 3,298 km would be awarded by March 2001 and the remaining 1,380 km by June 2001. In the meeting, the minister directed the NHAI to explore the possibility of attracting more private investments for the north-south and east-west corridors and directed the ministry to take appropriate steps to streamline the procedures in order to avoid delays in land acquisition for the project. Minister of state for surface transport, Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav, secretary (road transport and highways), Ashoke Joshi and NHAI chairman, Deepak Das Gupta were among the senior ministry and NHAI officials present in the meeting.