It marks a shift from NHAI’s present strategy, which focuses solely on creating new merchandise highway and the next highways Bharatmala Paryojana and road transport and the Division of Highways to implement these applications instantly.
ET has seen a duplicate of the directive.
The main target has shifted to present highways as a result of Ministry of Finance India has put a maintain on approval of recent highway initiatives underneath the Bharatmala Pariyojana because of excessive undertaking prices and funding points, a senior authorities official mentioned on situation of anonymity.
Consultants say this might ease congestion on many highways whereas making certain their upkeep. Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, International Consulting Head, Market Intelligence & Evaluation, Crisil, mentioned: “In contrast to greenfield initiatives, nationwide freeway (unique) initiatives are extra geared in direction of upgrading and upkeep. Therefore, the financial impression can be extra of congestion aid.”
As per the NHAI directive, the company will implement 79 Nationwide Highways (unique) initiatives with a complete size of roughly 1,421 km at an estimated price of Rs 1,44,392 crore in the course of the present fiscal yr. This system has two classes of initiatives – NHO1 and NHO2 – with a give attention to NHO1 schemes involving upkeep, repairs and minor upgrades of present nationwide highways, whereas NHO2 schemes usually embody extra in depth upgrades and modernization of present nationwide highways with the purpose of bettering Capability and security highways, adapting to elevated site visitors volumes and bettering general effectivity.
Out of Rs 1,443.92 billion, Rs 71,112 crore can be spent on NHO1 initiatives and Rs 732.8 billion can be spent on NHO2 initiatives.
As per the NHAI Precedence Plan 2024-25 accredited by the Ministry of Street Transport and Highways, 39 initiatives have been recognized underneath NHO1 and 40 initiatives underneath NHO2.
“Topic to Cupboard approval, the ministry will take up these initiatives by means of NHAI,” the official mentioned. “Nevertheless, this shift is prone to considerably decelerate the development of recent greenfield highways and highways this fiscal.”
Bihar tops the checklist by way of the variety of nationwide highways undertaken by NHAI underneath the NH (O) scheme this yr, adopted by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
