We will build more roads in one year than the NDA built in five years

amp;149;Gunjan Pradhan Sinha: There has been opposition in the Cabinet to the Land Acquisition Bill. You have said you will see whether the new version of the Bill is more workable than the older one.

I was part of the Cabinet committee that worked on the new rehabilitation policy and we produced a really good Act. It has gone to Parliament. There have been some concerns. Land acquisition is not a one-size-fits-all. Land acquisition in Kerala is very different from that in high density states. In my state,Madhya Pradesh,people ask for an SEZ,they are willing to give the land for free because it will create jobs and generate economic activity. Finally,there has to be equity and justice. I think we now have a very good Bill and we hope it will be passed.

amp;149;Subhomoy Bhattacharjee: Has the Cabinet,including Mamata Banerjee,agreed to the new version?

Yes. Well,I think Mamata Banerjees intentions are good. But I am sure she does not like the old Act. She has opposed the old Act and rightly so. So we must do away with that.

amp;149;Vinay Sitapati: The new Bill is different from the current law in that it mandates private developers to acquire 70 per cent of land directly from farmers,and only then will the state government acquire the remaining 30 per cent. What is the percentage ratio when the NHAI acquires land?

That only relates to large acquisitions. Here,there are no large chunks to be acquired,there are only strips. And these are existing one-lane roads,so the alignments are the same.

amp;149;Vinay Sitapati: At what point will you go in for forcible acquisitions?

This is size-related. For a 500-km road,you do not say 30 per cent will be acquired one way,and 70 another way. That applies when you have a composite 100 acres. In our case,its not even an acre,sometimes. When there is a problem,it is where settlement officers have to acquire 10 acres of land. For this,they may have to deal with a huge number of people. But sometimes you do not even have to acquire land because it is government land.

amp;149;Shekhar Gupta: What did Dr Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi say to you when they asked you to take this ministry?

I didnt want to work on WTO any longer. I believe that domestic compulsions in countries would create serious problems for any forward movement on it. There was a perception that I was the international blocker in this regard. When I told Dr Manmohan Singh and Mrs Sonia Gandhi this,they said they would give me the most difficult job that they had on hand.

amp;149;Anandita Singh Mankotia: Is there any plan to make modes of transportation complementary,rather than competitive?

We are not even close to wanting the transport modes to be complementary because the connectivity deficit is so large. The rail network and road network are not contradictory. Such contradictions occur when traffic flows are at saturation point. But we have a huge gap. Out of 71,000 km of national highway,55 per cent is two-lane,29 per cent is single-lane,16 per cent is four-lane and 0.39 per cent is six-lane. I have just given the World Bank a proposal to convert one-lane highways to two-lane ones with a loan of 3 billion.

amp;149;Shishir Gupta: Your predecessor blamed the Planning Commission for his inability to build roads. Are you facing the same problems?

I have not outsourced my ministry to the Planning Commission. My accountability is to Parliament. The Planning Commission does provide some inputs. As of now,there is no contentious issue with it. Some issues were inter-ministerial,for which the Prime Minister set up the Chaturvedi Committee with Planning Commission member B.K. Chaturvedi heading it. Its report has been accepted by the Planning Commission.

amp;149;Ritu Sarin: What are your views on the current austerity drive?

Austerity is an attitude. When there are issues like drought,everyone must be concerned and act upon it. There are various ways we can do that. The business of travel needs to be thought over. In five years,I have travelled a lot. I used to arrive in the morning at Geneva and leave the same night for Delhi. I can do it by whichever class it may be,but some ministers may not be able to do it.

amp;149;Surabhi Prasad: You have set a target of 7,000 km of highways for each year. How many km have been built so far? Secondly,two per cent work on the Golden Quadrilateral still remains. What do you plan to do?

The Golden Quadrilateral will be completed. When I talked of building 20 km a day,I meant it as a real target. I hope to achieve this target. We were doing 2.2 km a day and now we are talking about a ten-fold jump. We have done 10 km a day in July but not in August because of the rains. Next year,we will do 7,000 km.

amp;149;Surabhi Prasad: Are you planning to take a fresh look at the model concession agreement MCA?

We are talking about doing 60 per cent of the work on the basis of BoT build-operate-transfer mode. In MCA we have a termination clause which says we will pay back your money and tell you to go home if you refuse to expand the lanes. Suppose there is a road and it carries more traffic than it was designed for,then the person will be called upon to build another lane. But the MCA clause did not state who will pay for this. It went on to say that if you do not build another lane we will terminate the contract. This issue has been corrected by the Chaturvedi Committee.

amp;149;Rituparna Bhuiyan: Several thousands of km of roads have to pass through Naxal-prone areas. There is dismal progress in some areas.

We have a special Naxal package for roads. We have a special north-east plan too.

amp;149;Gayatri Verma: As of now,Assam PWD is the only good contractor in the north-east. Border Roads Organisation is good but very slow. Private contractors are reluctant to come forward because of the security threat. What will you do?

We have got three bids. We have bids for the first time in Arunachal Pradesh. I am engaging the chief ministers. I have urged them to sign the state support agreement. Some have signed it,which means that they will provide all the security needed. This gives contractors confidence.

amp;149;Gunjan Pradhan Sinha: What financial models are you looking at to fund road projects,as there is a tepid response from developers?

At the moment,we are getting Rs 7,000 crore from cess,Rs 3,000 crore from toll. We also have the option to securitise that. This means funding is not the major concern. The thing is to look out for a good financing pattern. If 60 per cent is on BoT,15 per cent on annuity,only around 15 per cent is EPC engineering-procurement-construction. I have to look out for the balance 10 per cent.

amp;149;Dhiraj Nayyar: Do you think roads should be free or paid for? In some countries the roads and highways are free.

In the UK,they did shadow tolling. Shadow tolling is a concept that I am examining here. In shadow tolling,for a road from Delhi to Dehra Dun,we invite bids and the bidder estimates the amount of traffic and the toll. We say,ok,this is the estimate your bid is based on but dont ask for the toll. We will give you the equivalent money. This is a toll which is paid for by the government. Tolling depends on what the traffic can pay. I am going to take another look at our toll policy. Tolling a road from Ahmedabad to Mumbai is easy but you cannot toll some of the roads in Orissa,MP and Bihar at this point of time. There can be no uniform toll.

amp;149;Gunjan Pradhan Sinha: How will you stem the rot in NHAI?

Capacity building in NHAI is very important. I am working on it. When I joined,most people at NHAI were in the departure lounge,ready to leave because they said their tenure was over,they had been promoted,etc. Now,we have spent a lot of money on advertising for recruitment of general managers. I am looking at creating executive directors. I have 11 regional offices and I have set up chief general managers in these. Earlier,everything was controlled from Delhi.

amp;149;Shekhar Gupta: Will you corporatise NHAI in the course of time?

I dont know whether corporatising is the right thing to do because NHAI works like a corporate structure without any profit motive. As the roads do not belong to the NHAI,but to the government,NHAI is not able to get any financing that looks at the roads as assets. The developer who has got a 25-year concession on building roads has got no right on it. So we are looking at how we can give it out on lease so that he gets better financing.

amp;149;Gayatri Verma: How tough is the new law going to be on incomplete road projects where land has not yet been utilised?

There are roads that could not progress because there was no land. Other times,work is abandoned because of contractor failure. We will have 10 per cent casualty rates. This is normal. You do not need a law for this. You need better management.

Transcribed by Ashutosh Kumar