road

The Government of India has planned to construct nearly 2,000km of highways across 12 hill states, worth Rs250bn ($3.7bn).

Government officials stated that majority of road works will be undertaken in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur.

The Indian Ministry of Road Transport and Highways intends to award highway projects that will include nearly 300km in Arunachal Pradesh, 256km in Mizoram, about 250km each in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, and 100km in Manipur.

Other highway projects will be undertaken in West Bengal, Sikkim, Nagaland, Assam and Uttarakhand.

According to officials, most of these road projects will have to be executed under the government-funded engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model.

A few high-traction projects, connecting religious places in Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir, will be awarded as per the hybrid annuity model.

A senior transport ministry official was quoted by The Economic Times as saying: "Projects worth Rs100bn ($1.5bn) were awarded in hill states last year, only 10% of the total projects awarded in the country.

"This year, we’re focussing more on hill states as they border with China, Nepal and Pakistan, and are of high-strategic importance to India."

The newly-formed National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation of India will be responsible for the execution of a majority of these projects.

"This year, we’re focussing more on hill states as they border with China, Nepal and Pakistan, and are of high-strategic importance to India."

The official added: "In all these states, we will be dividing our road contracts into small packages so that they can be awarded to local contractors to generate road building capacity at local level and increase local employment.

In the current fiscal year, the road transport and highways ministry was allotted Rs570bn ($8.5bn), while the National Highways Development Authority has been permitted to raise tax-free bonds worth Rs150bn ($2.2bn)

In the last fiscal year, the road ministry awarded approximately 10,000km of highway contracts for Rs1,000bn ($15.07bn).

Approximately 6,300km of the project was made at an average of nearly 18km a day.

Image: A road in India. Photo: courtesy of federico stevanin / freedigitalphotos.