The ministry of road transport and highways has set up milestones for land acquisition procedures, and environment, forest and wildlife clearances for all national highways projects that come up for bidding with effect from June 1, 2025.
The move will help synchronise the project approval, award and appointed date declaration activated by all the stakeholders and will help in avoiding delays in construction of national highway projects after award and prevent contractual disputes as well as time and cost overruns, the ministry said in a recent notification.
A Care Ratings report shows as much as 55% of the 374 road projects awarded by the national highways body, with an aggregate construction cost value of Rs 1 lakh crore, are delayed beyond six months as of December 2024 with time overrun up from 33% in June 2023 to 55% in December 2024.
As per the notification, environmental clearance, wildlife clearance, general agreement drawings of Railways and utility shifting estimates have to be in place before bids are received, while the general agreement drawings of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has to be completed before inviting the bid and the forest clearance have to be completed before issue of letter of award.
For land acquisition, however, it has notified that over 90% of right of way (ROW) length for the project has to be acquired before receipt of bids.
Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, in response to a question in Rajya Sabha in December, said nearly 44% of national highway projects, each worth at least Rs 150 crore, across 32 states and union territories (UT), were under construction as of March 2024, but are facing delays.
According to Gadkari, 419 out of 952 such projects had missed their original completion deadlines by March 2024, with delays at various stages of project completion, due to land acquisition bottlenecks, delays in obtaining statutory clearances and permissions, utility shifting, encroachment removal, and law and order issues.
Maharashtra had the highest number of delayed projects, with 59 out of 101 projects running behind schedule, he had said, adding proportionally, northeastern states and UTs are the worst affected.
The move will help synchronise the project approval, award and appointed date declaration activated by all the stakeholders and will help in avoiding delays in construction of national highway projects after award and prevent contractual disputes as well as time and cost overruns, the ministry said in a recent notification.
A Care Ratings report shows as much as 55% of the 374 road projects awarded by the national highways body, with an aggregate construction cost value of Rs 1 lakh crore, are delayed beyond six months as of December 2024 with time overrun up from 33% in June 2023 to 55% in December 2024.
As per the notification, environmental clearance, wildlife clearance, general agreement drawings of Railways and utility shifting estimates have to be in place before bids are received, while the general agreement drawings of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has to be completed before inviting the bid and the forest clearance have to be completed before issue of letter of award.
For land acquisition, however, it has notified that over 90% of right of way (ROW) length for the project has to be acquired before receipt of bids.
Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, in response to a question in Rajya Sabha in December, said nearly 44% of national highway projects, each worth at least Rs 150 crore, across 32 states and union territories (UT), were under construction as of March 2024, but are facing delays.
According to Gadkari, 419 out of 952 such projects had missed their original completion deadlines by March 2024, with delays at various stages of project completion, due to land acquisition bottlenecks, delays in obtaining statutory clearances and permissions, utility shifting, encroachment removal, and law and order issues.
Maharashtra had the highest number of delayed projects, with 59 out of 101 projects running behind schedule, he had said, adding proportionally, northeastern states and UTs are the worst affected.
