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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 8 The first mega project worth Rs 5,000 crore will be up for bidding in the next four to six weeks, said Mr Kamal Nath, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit.

“We are looking at six such mega projects for the States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra,” he said. Each mega project will be worth Rs 5,000-8,000 crore.

Earlier, Mr Nath gave assurances to the gathering at the summit that road construction target of 20 km/day would be achieved by March 2010. However, a barrage of questions from the forum highlighted the numerous obstacles that lay before the Minister.

Mr David Birch, Regional Managing Director, Halcrow, asked Mr Nath to significantly improve the cost-assessment system of projects. “The cost of the projects needs to be defined properly. The viability gap is defined on the cost and if the actual cost is more than the assessed cost, it creates a problem for the contractors.”

The Minister admitted that the Government had never got the total cost project right. He said, “Content of the feasibility studies has always been wrong. This has resulted in the wrong assessment of the project cost.”

Addressing the concerns of the industry regarding dispute resolution, Mr Nath said, “The Government is working on a system to arrive at a fair and equitable dispute resolution. A committee has been set up by the Prime Minister to resolve disputes on this,” he said.

The Minister also assured the gathering that the time taken for land acquisition would be reduced from 18 to 8 months. Mr Nath said that it will be mandatory to have 80 per cent of the land acquired for a project before it gets the green signal.

More Stories on : Infrastructure | Roadways

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