NEW DELHI: Amid rising complaints about the quality of construction of national highways and expressways, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed the road transport ministry to fix systemic issues, including rampant sub-contracting of work by highway builders, poor project reports and contractors quoting very low prices, resulting in inferior construction.
Chairing a review meeting of the road transport sector on Wednesday evening, Modi instructed the road ministry and NHAI to focus on building and maintenance of NHs, and to leave development of roads in cities to the state govts, sources said. They added the issue of poor quality of construction and maintenance of highways was discussed at length and Modi sought quick action to address these concerns.
TOI has learnt the PM also asked officials to take steps to develop quality-conscious highway builders and consultants preparing project reports rather than having a large pool of players who are bagging projects quoting prices 30-40% below the estimated costs. There have been multiple instances of mishaps at under-construction tunnels, bridges and cases of newly completed highways caving in or rutting barely months after their inauguration.
The most recent examples were the bad riding conditions on Sohna-Dausa stretch of Delhi-Mumbai, Amritsar-Jamnagar and Eastern Peripheral Expressways. In the past six-seven months, the NHAI has debarred seven contractors for 1-24 months and has imposed a cumulative fine of Rs 23 crore.
Sources also said Modi has asked the ministry to avoid dividing NH corridors into several small packages to keep the cost just below Rs 1,000 crore, which don’t need Cabinet approval. He asked the ministry to send complete corridor projects for Cabinet approval.
At the meeting, the ministry was directed to prepare a detailed report on arbitrations of past 20 years in highway projects with details of parties, claims, names of arbitrators and the award amount. Sources said so far there have been around 750 arbitration cases in the highway sector, and nearly 115 of them with claims of approximately Rs 1 lakh crore are ongoing.
“It’s a tough task. But we hope there will be good outcome of this exercise,” said an official. NHAI has one of the largest number of arbitration cases in infrastructure sector.
