Delay in road projects, unsafe bridges add to the infrastructure woes
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has lost at least nine projects in the last two quarters, as revealed by sources. It is estimated that, altogether, the nine projects were worth about Rs 10,000 crore and would have added around 1.110 km of highway roads.
The projects that were lost by the road ministry include the 260 km Bhavnagar-Veraval link in Gujarat, the 168 km Ghoshpukur-Salsalabari road in West Bengal, the 220 km Bijapur-Gulbarga-Humnabad and 143 km Hospet-Hubli projects in Karnataka.
The projects failed to generate any interest from private developers. The sector is under stress currently and this loss has further added to the problem. Lack of equity, no financial help, sluggish economy and the overall poor market sentiment are expected to be the reasons for the failure of bids.
In the current fiscal, the ministry could manage to contract out only 900 km of road projects so far, which is too less. However, the ministry is hoping that things will get better from now. Due to some of the recent policy changes, the developers seem to be more comfortable now and are ready to look for new projects.
The road ministry is targeting to finish 9000 km of road and highway projects in the current fiscal (2012-2013) to prop up India’s poor infrastructure that has been preventing the nation from rapid industrialization. Although achieving this target seems challenging at such conditions, say market watchers.
Even in the previous fiscal of Apr 2012-Mar 2013, the ministry had awarded only 1,115 km of projects while the target for the whole year was 9,500 km.
Developers do not find many of these projects attractive as they do not offer them good returns on investment. Many leading players are struck with liquidity issues and are already facing issues with projects in hand that are not going well. Only if the existing projects speed up, there will be chances to deal with the new projects.
In order to quicken up the projects, the government has recently given clearance to a proposal that allows developers to exit completely from both ongoing and completed projects. The government has taken few more measures including delinking environment and forest clearances, limiting approvals required at the pre-bid stage, etc.
While on one side, the road projects are moving at a slow pace, on the other side, many bridges are observed to be in serious trouble.
Three bridges constructed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) have been declared unsafe and movement of traffic on the bridges has been banned currently. Even if vehicles move at a minimum speed on the bridge in the north-western side of Vyttila Junction, it may crack down. Kumbalam-Aroor bridge on Edappally-Aroor NH 47 Bypass is also announced to be unsafe.
Even the new bridge which is parallel to the second Goshree bridge is at risk as its gap slab is sinking. The bridge was built by Soma Constructions and started functioning only a year ago, in May 2012, but now it is awaiting structural correction.
Another bridge built by the same builder, which is the Moolampilly-Kothad bridge on the Vallarpadam-Kalamassery Container Road, is also having issues just within a year of it being opened to traffic. Large chunks of concrete has been falling off from the surface of the bridge creating holes in the bridge.
Even after a decade has passed, that the Vyttila bridge issue came into light, the NHAI is still in a planning state to rectify the issue, which is irking the commuters.
