Considering that public-private
partnership is poised to
become the predominant
mode of delivering infrastructure
services in the near
future, the Ministry of Road Transport
and Highways needs to adopt
suitable measures for making
National Highway Development
Projects attractive to private
parties, the Parliamentary Committee
on Estimates has emphasised
in a report tabled in Lok
Sabha last month.
According to the 16th report on
action taken by the Centre in
response to the recommendations
contained in the 11th report of the
Committee on Estimates concerning
NHDP, including implementation
of the Golden Quadrilateral
project, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways should
explore various possibilities for
attracting private investment by
revising the project cost, providing
funds at concessional interest
rate, and giving flexibility in terms
of updated and authentic traffic
data in the concession agreement.
The report expresses concern
over the manner in which the
Ministry of Road Transport and
Highways had
responded to the
Committee's earlier
recommendations
in this regard.
The Committee
also notes in the
report that there is
no plan of action so
far for accelerating the process of
implementation of the North
South-East West Corridor projects.
Considering that the Ministry
of Road Transport and Highways
has not provided details of
how the NS-EW projects would be
completed, there is need for initiating
suitable steps and preparing
a detailed action plan for their successful
completion, the report
stresses. The Committee had
emphasised on the importance of
preparing such a plan by the ministry
in its earlier recommendations
for NHDP.
On the issue of toll collection on
national highways, the Committee's
report observes that at present,
there is no mechanism for
ensuring compliance with
National Highway Authority of
India fee rules. To effectively deal
with unscrupulous toll collectors,
the Committee recommends
adopting the Intelligent Transport
System for traffic data collection
in line with the Nilekani Committee's
report on electronic
toll collection.
The controversial
subject of land
acquisition and
compensation finds
mention in the Committee's
report as
well. The Committee
expresses serious concern
over the ways adopted by the Ministry
of Road Transport and Highways
for dealing with the issues of
appointment of chief secretaries
as nodal officers by state governments
for land acquisition, payment
of compensation to project
affected persons, and development
of expressways.
Details have been sought
about the progress made in setting
up of the Expressway
Authority of India, which was
prioritised way back in the 11th
Five-Year Plan.