Question : Delayed Highway Projects

(a) the details of the delayed and languishing National Highway projects, State-wise and project-wise;

(b) the main reasons for the delayed and languishing projects along with the corrective steps taken or proposed to be taken by the Government/NHAI in this regard;

(c) whether the Government agencies involved in the planning and execution have not been able to assess the viability of the projects correctly and faithfully;

(d) if so, the reaction of the Government thereon; and

(e) the steps taken by the Government to speed up the delayed and revive the languishing Highway Projects and complete them expeditiously?

THE MINISTER OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS

(SHRI NITIN JAIRAM GADKARI)

(a) to (e) A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 26 ANSWERED ON 25TH FEBRUARY, 2016 ASKED BY SHRI DHARMENDRA YADAV AND SHRI ADHALRAO PATIL SHIVAJIRAO REGARDING DELAYED HIGHWAY PROJECTS
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(a) The details of delayed and languishing National Highway (NH) projects being implemented through various State Agencies and NHAI are placed at Annexure.

(b) Such languishing NH projects have been delayed due to lack of equity, difficulties in obtaining additional debt by the concessionaire, delay in land acquisition/utility shifting/statutory clearances as well as non-availability of soil/aggregates in some parts of country..

(c) Although implementing agencies/NHAI are fully able to assess the viability of any project, however, in the past due to inadequate project preparation and lack of regulatory clearances and other delay attributable to the Authority or Concessionaire, the projects that were viable otherwise, turned unviable during execution.

(d) and (e) Government has recently taken various policy measures to revive languishing/delayed NH projects. These include

• One time fund infusion to revive and physically complete languishing NH projects under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode that have achieved at least 50% physical completion as such infusion of moderate funding can quickly bring these projects to completion. This assistance will be provided by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) from its overall budget corpus on loan basis for a short tenure at Bank Rate +2%.
• Government has also permitted extension of concession period for languishing NH projects on BOT (Toll) mode for the period of delay not directly attributable to the concessionaire subject to the condition that tenure of the operation period would remain unchanged and the project has to be physically completed within the next three years.
• Payment of annuities corresponding to the actual period of delay not attributable to the concessionaire in case of languishing highways projects under BOT (Annuity) mode is also envisaged.
• Various steps have also been taken by the Government/ NHAI to remove the hurdles affecting the construction of NH projects includes streamlining of land acquisition and regulatory clearances, close coordination with other ministries, revamped Disputes Resolution Mechanism etc. NHAI/Ministry has also decided not to award any EPC Project till 90% & BOT Project till 80% land is available and till all major pre-construction approvals are in-place for the project in order to avoid post bid delays during execution of such projects. Due to such efforts and sustained monitoring, the number of languishing highway projects has been brought down substantially.