Govt. sets to award 15,000-km road projects

With the doubling of road building targets from 8,000 km in the current fiscal to 15,000 km for the next financial year, the government has initiated the process to achieve the laid down target. The budget for 2017-18 has already earmarked nearly Rs. 12,000-cr more amounting to a total of Rs. 64,900-cr for the next fiscal, as compared to the revised allocation of Rs. 52,446-cr for current year. Besides, the ministry has been allowed to raise another Rs. 59,000-cr through National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) bonds during the next fiscal. For the current year, NHAI was allowed to raise Rs. 50,000cr, of which, it has already raised Rs. 25,000cr. Two more tranches of Rs. 5,000-cr will be raised in the coming days. The target for the next year is ambitious but given the availability of funds through budgetary allocation and extra budgetary sources such as bonds, the road building agencies will meet the target. If placed together, the budgetary allocation and the amount permitted to be raised through bonds, comes out to be around Rs. 1.24 lakh-cr, which is sufficient to build the targeted length, they claimed.