NHAI awards 1,500-km highway contracts

Accelerating the project awarding process, the NHAI has bid out a length of 1,500 km in March, taking the total length of projects awarded to date to 4,000 km in this fiscal, NHAI chairman Deepak Kumar said, revealing that another 4,000 km would be awarded in the remaining period of this fiscal. With this, the total length of projects bid out could scale 8,000 km this fiscal — lower than the target of 10,000 km NHAI had set for itself for the fiscal but higher than the 4,335 km awarded in the last financial year. The target of 10,000 km set for this year was lower than the target of 15,000 km set for FY17. In the last five years, NHAI has awarded an average of 2,860 km per year and that NHAI‘s bidding calendar this month is the busiest one with projects being awarded every other day, with the authority hoping to get close to the laid down target. According to sources, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) may award 5,500 km this fiscal, taking the total length of road projects awarded this year to 12,000 km, much lower than the total of 16,000 km awarded in FY17. Union minister for road transport & highways, shipping and river development Nitin Gadkari was hoping to bid out contracts worth 25,000 km in 2017-18.