Infra spending up; NHAI executing 205 projects: Chairman

Infrastructure spending has picked up in the country and NHAI is executing 205 projects including 18 worth Rs 13,500 crore on hybrid annuity mode, its Chairman Raghav Chandra said.

“Infrastructure spending is going up and highways sector has stimulated growth. Cement and steel sectors sales have increased by 5 per cent each while bitumen sales have risen by 35 per cent…There are 205 projects of NHAI that are going on,” NHAI chief said at a conference on ‘Revitalising Public Private Partnership in Infrastructure’ by IIFCL here.

Chandra said NHAI has awarded 18 projects on hybrid annuity mode (HAM) entailing an investment of Rs 13,500 crore under which about 800 km will be constructed.

He said to revive languishing highways projects, government had taken up a number of initiatives and in three of the projects that were stuck since 2011, a sum of Rs 1,100 crore will be infused.

“State Bank of India (SBI) and NHAI have arrived at a broad framework for resolving three projects which were languishing since 2011. We will be infusing an overall amount of Rs 1,100 crore in these three projects,” the chairman said.

On the problems plaguing PPP projects, he said there had been uncertainties in the PPP projects in the past. Also, there had been “very aggressive” bidding in the period from 2010 to 2012.

“In fact 23 of those projects had to be terminated and some of them had exuberant bids. The total envelope of the premium that was offered added up to something like Rs 93,000 crore and in some cases the total premium that was offered was one and a half time of the cost of the completion of the project,” he said.

Many of the projects on build, operate and transfer (BOT) mode could not be successful as promoters failed to do required due diligence.

Chandra also said NHAI is looking to bid out 30,000 km of projects in the next 2-3 years which include several greenfield expressway projects.

National Highways Authority of India