Expressways, SEZs may come up alongside

The Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is likely to allow real estate developers to tie up with road developers for setting up SEZs alongside expressways.

According to sources, the construction cost of expressways is almost Rs 20 crore per km and therefore can pose difficulties for road developers to fund such huge projects on their own.

Thus, expressways can be commercialised by setting up SEZs. The road developers can tie up with real estate players and bid for the project.

NHAI likely to have more powers

The NHAI is likely to be able to exercise more powers on decisions related to bidding for roadway projects after the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI) accepted a slew of recommendations made by the committee.

As a result, NHAI can now accept a single bid after reasonable consideration, which earlier used to go to the Cabinet for approval. Till now, any road project was to be awarded only if it got at least two bids. Also, to bring down procedural delays, the RFQ, once submitted and qualified, will remain valid for one year from the date of submitting the RFQ or valid till 30 September, whichever comes early. Earlier, a bidder had to go through the process all the time.

The committee had also recommended providing powers to NHAI to change the RFP and RFQ norms, which were approved by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Earlier, such changes were done by the Planning Commission.

NHAI nod for few restructured projects

The NHAI has reportedly approved that all projects where the value change after restructuring was below 20 per cent of the total project cost (TPC) will be cleared by the board. The ones with over 20 per cent variation will be referred to the Union Government for approval.

This is expected to fast-track clearance of the restructured highway projects. Nearly 35 projects tendered during 2008 were restructured till June 2009, as these received no bidders. The TPC of most of these projects was increased after reassessment of engineering was done.

The NHAI board has agreed that projects cleared by the board shall not need PPP Appraisal Committee clearance. However, it will refer the case to the ministry for its nod.