Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said the government may punish officials blamed for delaying highway works by not deciding on works quickly. To make up for the losses incurred in terms of highways projects and to bring them on track, the Road Transport, Highways and MSME Minister Gadkari has already fixed a target to build roads worth Rs 15 trillion in the next two years. Earlier, the Minister, had reviewed 740 highway projects totalling 28,304 km from 16 states and has asked officials and stakeholders to fast-track these. The projects were worth about Rs 5 trillion.
He reportedly conveyed that though he was not in a position to provide the exact number of such queries, but said the number is “huge”. NHAI has about 175 project directors and 25 regional officers across the country. The Minister said the NHAI has resumed 95 per cent of work on war-footing now with permission to start construction activities while adhering to guidelines. On the NHAI arbitration conciliation, he said: In 22 out 24 ongoing cases adjournment was sought by NHAI officials and I have directed the Chairman to expedite it. Hopefully things will be fast-tracked now.
The Minister said his Ministry was conducting performance audit and termed it more important than financial audit. The minister had earlier said in case of stalling of projects on account of court or tribunal orders, NHAI and the Highways Ministry will put hoardings and banners informing people behind the reasons for delays. The issue of timely approval of Extension of Time (EOT) and change of scope (COS) was particularly raised by the Contractors/ Concessionaire during a recent meeting saying timely approvals would help in facilitating lending by banks. An online portal “GATI” was also launched to fast-track decision making and make the process transparent. A new internal initiative ‘Review Mondays’ had also announced under which meetings of officials on the first and the third Monday of every month will be held to focus on monitoring and review of projects.
Last month, the Minister set an ambitious target of 60 km per day highway construction to ensure speedy recovery of the economy from the shocks of COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, state-run NHAI said that it has accomplished construction of 3,979 km of national highways in 2019-20, which was the highest ever highway construction achieved in a financial year by the company. In fiscal FY2019, NHAI had constructed 3,380 km of national highways.