The National Highways Authority of India has been aggressive in calling for bids across the country, but few projects have been awarded

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which has an ambitious plan of adding 20km per day, is expected to come out with bids for road projects worth Rs4,000 crore by August-end. However, the target has been revised for the current financial year.

"More NHAI bids are expected by the end of August 2010. Bids are likely for about Rs3,600 crore to Rs4,000 crore worth of projects by the end of August 2010," said an industry source familiar with the development.
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The first project likely to be bid out in this process is the Panvel- Indapur Highway project in Maharashtra. The project work will include four-laning the 100km highway. The total project cost is being pegged at around Rs1,100 crore. Bids for this project were to be called for yesterday.

The ministry of road transport and highways has been targeting an ambitious record of 20km per day (or 7,000km per year) of road development. As of May 2010, road development of around 684km has been completed.

Under NHAI's 'Work Plan I', projects of a total length of 5,600km have already been awarded. Bids for another seven projects of a total length of 4,056km are in the pipeline. Bids for 11 projects of 1,036 km have already been called for.

Under 'Work Plan II', one road project of 170km has already been awarded. Bids for projects of total length of 307km are in the process of being invited; bids for three projects of total length of 489km have already been called for. The ministry also plans to announce bids for projects of total length of  23,000km in this financial year. These are projects which have been approved and are ready for bidding.

While the NHAI has been on a bidding spree, it has suffered a setback in actually awarding them. Not much activity has been noticed on the actual awarding front over the past few months. However, it has continued to bid rigorously. The last bidding that took place was in the previous month.

In line with various announcements made by the ministry, there are plans for around six mega-expressway projects. While a few road-developing companies have already tied up with foreign counterparts to bid for these projects, nothing concrete has been announced by the ministry. According to sources from the ministry, there is no new significant development on the Expressway Authority which was being planned to smoothen the process of awarding these expressway projects. — Amritha Pillay