The Hindu Business Line : Shift focus to corridor management: Survey

WITH many parts of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) having been commissioned, the focus of road development needs to shift from construction to corridor management, the Economic Survey for 2004-05 has said.

Corridor management is the process of managing the highway so as to deliver maximal throughput in terms of velocity and number of vehicles while minimising the cost to the economy of accidents. " Road safety is an important area of focus, particularly given India's lack of experience with high velocity roads," says the Survey.

Till January 31, 5,418 km of NHDP has been completed the bulk of which 4,480 km lie on the Golden Quadrilateral linking the four metros.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is currently carrying out maintenance of completed sections of national highways through short-term improvement and road maintenance contracts and long-term performance- based maintenance contracts.

The scope of work includes road maintenance, road property management, incident management, engineering improvement of toll-fee collection, traffic management, facility management, planning of operation and maintenance centre, training and road safety provisions.

Given the huge costs involved in building a four-lane highway (Rs 4.5 crore per km) and a six-lane expressway (Rs 8.5 crore per km), the Survey said that "great care" was required in designing a framework for investment which avoids unnecessary strain on Government finances.

In the ports sector, the Survey says that the central focus should be to maximise intra-port and inter-port competition. "An increasing shift towards a model where the port is a landlord and multiple port operators in place to compete within the port, may be the way forward," it said.

The Survey has expressed concern over the wide variation in pre-berthing and turnaround times that continue to haunt major ports. JNPT, the country's premier container port, recently experienced a worsening of both average pre-berthing and turnaround times.

From 9.36 hours in 2003-04, the average pre-berthing time on port account at JNPT declined to 10.56 hours during 2004-05 (up to December 2004). Whereas, the average turn-around time in days slipped from 2.04 days in 2003-04 to 2.32 days in 2004-05 (up to December 2004).

" The pre-berthing waiting time at JNPT is a particularly important problem given the fact that JNPT accounts for over half of India's container traffic. The recent difficulties appear to have been primarily caused by the poor rail and road container evacuation infrastructure from the port to its hinterland", the Survey said.

The recent congestion experience at JNPT highlights the importance of modernising the road and rail connectivity between the port and the hinterland. "Weakness in these aspects can significantly negate the benefits to the economy of investments in port infrastructure", it noted.

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