Stalled projects put highway construction in the slow lane

While road construction has picked up this year, a whole host of projects — across 2,500 km — that entail an investment of over Rs 27,000 crore are stuck. Among the reasons for the delay are the inability to acquire land and the absence of environment clearances. A few of them, however, are merely awaiting completion certificates while others are stuck because of legal disputes between the concessionaire and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Industry watchers point out that several projects have received provisional completion certificates or PCCs.

However, with concessionaires and NHAI fighting each other in the courts or tribunals, the projects are unable to get a commercial operations date or COD.

A list of 28 such projects shows that, on average, these projects are now two to three years late. HCC’s Rs 1,078-crore Farakka-Raiganj section was scheduled to be complete by August 2013 but was delayed because NHAI wasn’t able to acquire the land in time. Sources said, however, that NHAI has made progress and the COD may be just two or three months away.

In the Rs 1,509-crore Surat-Hazira project on the Gujarat-Maharashtra border, concessionaire Soma Isolux claims that despite completing 88% of the project, NHAI has not issued a PCC. A PCC is a prerequisite for commencing collections. According to NHAI’s website, the estimated date of completion — after revision — was November 2015.

Once projects are delayed, they tend to be downgraded by rating agencies. The Trichy-Karur national highway project in Tamil Nadu, awarded to Reliance Infrastructure, was scheduled to be completed in 2010 but turned operational only in 2014. Consequently, in February 2014, Icra had termed the outlook for long-term fund-based limits negative since the project could not start tolling even in January 2014, a factor that increased the repayment/refinance risks for the project, Icra had observed.

Similarly, in September 2015, CARE Ratings downgraded the long-term bank facilities of Transstroy Bhopal Biaora Tollways to default category citing a delay in servicing debt. The project had achieved financial progress of 65.5% by November 2014 against the targeted 77.6%.

Nevertheless, the government recently cleared issues faced by 27 road projects across 3,200 km. Over 2,000 km of these projects are already complete.

An IDFC Securities report notes that in the 10 months of April-January, NHAI had constructed 1,538 km of roads, an increase of 39% year-on-year. Apart from completing projects, a focus on awarding new ones has gained momentum as well. NHAI awarded 3,402 km of roads worth Rs 43,300 crore between April and February 2016, registering a sharp 35% jump y-o-y. In fact, in the nine-months period of FY16, total highway projects awarded by NHAI and ministry of road transport and highways stood at 6,353 km.

Another Rs 35,600 crore worth of roads assets are in various stages of bidding, which will add 2,459 km of roads to the existing network. Betting big on the hybrid annuity model, projects worth Rs 23,600 crore of 1,343 km will also be bid out in the coming months.