Joshi consults industry on kickstarting highway projects

With the award of highway projects almost at a standstill in the first quarter of this fiscal,road transport and highways minister CP Joshi

With the award of highway projects almost at a standstill in the first quarter of this fiscal,road transport and highways minister CP Joshi on Wednesday met with private infrastructure firms,banks and lending institutions to discuss measures to remove obstacles,including environment related issues,that are blocking the growth of the sector.

Joshi blamed delays in environmental clearance and law and order issues for stalling highway projects and said that he would take up the issue with the environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan.

In terms of forest clearance,we would discuss the matter with the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Prime Mnister has also appointed officials to address the inter-ministerial issues. We would identify those issues and get them resolved from the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), Joshi said.

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The highways ministry estimates that more than 500 road projects in various states are awaiting forest clearances at present.

Meanwhile,Joshi said that the meeting also discussed the highway construction target for the current fiscal. We have discussed the issue of road construction,the issue of lenders and how we want to proceed in 2012-13. We have fixed a target of over 9,000 km award (of projects) and plus 3,000 km construction in the current fiscal, he said.

Highway developers however blamed the new concession agreements for the delay in award of projects.

Ajit Gulabchand,chairman of HCC said that companies were unwilling to bid for projects due to limitations in the new concession agreements.

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There are almost Rs 11,000 crore in arbitration which needs to be resolved,the companies whose money is held up are in trouble. All these problems were discussed. The industry is hopeful that the government would resolve the arbitration issues,improve the concession agreement and lay down the process with the environment ministry, Gulabchand said.

The meeting came a month after the Prime Minister reviewed the performance of the highways ministry for which he has set a target of awarding 9,500 km worth of projects in the current fiscal.

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