Govt targets to award 9,000 km road projects in FY14

The Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry on April 16 stated that it has fixed an internal target of giving 9,000 km of projects in 2013-14. It added that fixing such a target is to ensure award of at least 7,300 km of national highways and to revive the sector, the Ministry said in an official statement.

The government's plan envisages more than 50 per cent of the projects to be taken up on Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) mode. This approach aims at rejuvenating the road construction industry.

The targets were reviewed by Road Transport and Highways Minister CP Joshi in a meeting in Delhi against the backdrop of a dismal show last year when award of road projects declined to 1,933 kms -- much below the target of 9,500 km. The thrust of the review meeting was to identify steps for restoring the pace of award of road projects and as part of this exercise scheme-wise targets were set for each month of the financial year, it added.

The statement added that the Ministry is now looking beyond the target of award of 3,000 kms on National Highways in the first six months as announced by the Finance Minister in his budget speech. Accordingly the Highways Minister has finalised an initial target for the Ministry and NHAI of 3,800 kms in the first six months.