The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has stated its desire to become the primary agency to manage the Central Road and Infrastructure Fund (CRIF or the erstwhile Central Road Fund).

It wants to go back to the earlier system when the funds from CRIF or the erstwhile Central Road Fund was distributed by the Road Ministry, instead of the present system when the entire fund is distributed by the Finance Ministry, VK Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, said responding to a query in Parliament here. Allocation of the CRIF, collected from sale of petrol and diesel, is controlled by the Finance Ministry. CRIF, which till a year ago, was earmarked only for roads when it was named Central Road Fund or CRF, can now be used for over 40 types of infrastructure including electricity, oil pipelines, LNG, water, telecom, tourism infrastructure, hospitals and housing.

NHAI’s borrowings soared when the overall work and cost of roads increased while the share of road cess funds that the sector commanded plunged.

Several Parliamentarians also called for a bigger role for MPs in allocation and use of CRIF in a judicious manner, so that the funds can be used in their constituencies. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, agreed with the observation and promised that he will take up the issue with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The Highway Ministry has got a budgetary support of ₹83,015.97 crore for the current fiscal , up almost ₹5,000 crore against the revised estimate of ₹78,625.5 crore for fiscal 2018-19. The revised estimate for 2018-19 is higher by over ₹7,000 crore against the budgeted estimate of ₹71,000 crore for the Ministry, according to the Budget.

As the National Highways Authority of India borrows more for the road sector, a section of Parliamentarians fear that the repayment capacity will be hampered if projects turn into non-performing assets.

NHAI loans

Sougata Roy, MP, Trinamool Congress, expressed concern about increasing loans of the National Highways Authority of India. Roy expressed fear that it will be difficult to pay back the ballooning loans, which will touch ₹75,000 crore this fiscal, if more and more loans were to turn non-performing assets as road projects remain incomplete. The fears are due to problems in land acquisition, environment clearance and resettlement. “Weak on safety and fund collection,” Roy summed up while responding in Parliament in the discussion on demands for grants for the road sector.

Gadkari listed a slew of borrowing options that the road sector was considering, including borrowing upto ₹60,000 crore from the National Infrastructure Investment Fund for Delhi-Mumbai expressway, ₹25,000 crore from SBI, ₹7,000 crore from ADB and a similar amount from World Bank, LIC, pension fund and Labour Ministry.

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