Question : Golden Quadrilateral Road Project

(a) the details of the Golden Quadrilateral Project connecting the four metropolitan cities of the country viz. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata along with the status of the project;

(b) whether the Government provides 5 per cent of the construction cost as Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to promote private investment and if so, the details thereof;

(c) the project cost of two sections Chandikhol-Jagatpur-Bhubaneswar on National Highway No. 5 in Odisha and 192 km. section between Varanasi and Aurangabad on National Highway No. 2 in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the percentage/ amount given to the contractor of construction companies as VGF and the crores of rupees loss suffered by the Government exchequer as a result thereof;

(d) whether the Government proposes to check providing such undue mileage in future; and

(e) if so, the details thereof?

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE
MINISTRY OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS

(SHRI PON. RADHAKRISHNAN)

(a) Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) connects metropolitan cities of Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, covering total length of 5846 kms. Entire length has already been completed.

(b) to (e) For the projects on Build-Operate-Transfer BOT(Toll) mode involving two laning or four laning, the permissible Viability Gap Funding (VGF) is 40% of the Total Project Cost. For 6-laning, permissible VGF is 10% of the TPC for the entire six-laning programme, and upto 20% VGF for individual projects in low traffic GQ stretches within an overall cap of 500 km out of the 5080 km of the National Highway Development Project (NHDP) Phase-V. The estimated Total Project Cost (TPC) of the project of 6-laning of Chandikhole-Jagatpur-Bhubaneswar section of NH-5 in Odisha is Rs. 1047 Crore and grant quoted by the selected bidder/Concessionaire was Rs. 205 Crore which is 19.58% of the TPC. The estimated total project cost of the project of 6-lanng of Varanasi-Aurangabad is Rs. 2848 Crore and VGF amount is Rs. 565 Crore which was 19.8% of the TPC. Since VGF release in the both projects is within permissible limits, therefore, no loss to the government exchequer has occurred.

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