NHAI Signs Agreement for ₹7,000 Cr Guwahati Ring Road Project

NHAI has signed a concession agreement with Dineshchandra R Agrawal Infracon Pvt. Ltd. for the development of the 121-km-long Guwahati Ring Road at a total cost of ₹5,729 crore. The project will be executed on a Build-Operate-Toll (BOT) model with a 30-year concession period, including four years for construction.

To support the project, the Assam government will contribute ₹1,270 crore by covering 50% of the land cost, exempting royalty on aggregates, and waiving the state portion of GST. With these contributions, the total project cost stands at approximately ₹7,000 crore.

The Guwahati Ring Road project will have three sections which include 56 km long 4-lane Access-Controlled Northern Guwahati Bypass, widening of the existing 8 km bypass on NH 27 from four lanes to six lanes, and improvement of existing 58 km long bypass on NH 27. Notably, a 3 km long major bridge over river Brahmaputra will be also constructed as a part of the project.

The Ring Road will provide seamless connectivity to long-distance traffic plying on the East-West Corridor of NH-27, which is the gateway to North-East Region of the country. The development of the Ring Road will help to decongest Guwahati City and neighboring North- Eastern states by bypassing major traffic coming from West Bengal/Bihar to Silchar, Nagaland and Tripura. The project will also provide seamless connectivity to major towns in the region including Siliguri, Silchar, Shillong, Jorhat, Tezpur, Jogigopha, and Barpeta.

The Government of India has been encouraging Public Private Partnership for Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects. To encourage adoption of projects on BOT mode, various modifications in the Modal Concession Agreement (MCA) of BOT(Toll) and provisional BOT(Toll) have been affected in recent past. This is the first contract signed on the basis of modified Modal Concession Agreement which will pave way for more such contracts.

As a part of Government of India’s ‘Vision 2047’, a large number of high-speed corridors are envisaged to be developed. Robust Public Private Partnership in development of road sector will play a pivotal role in realizing this vision and will greatly contribute towards the development as well as Operations and Maintenance of the world class National Highway Network in the country.