Govt to award 1,000-km expressway projects

The government said on Tuesday it will award four Expressway projects of a total length of 1,000 km by the end of this fiscal.

"We will award four expressway highway projects of a total length of 1,000 km under National Highways Development Project by the end of the current fiscal," Road Transport and Highways secretary Brahm Dutt told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The transport mnistry had in November 2006 proposed the four Expressways -- Vadodara-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, New Delhi-Meerut and Kolkata-Dhanbad.

Dutt said land acquisition for the projects would be easy as all projects are new.

"Land acquisition for these projects will not be a problem as these are greenfield projects."

The government had earlier proposed a nationwide network of Expressways.

The final master plan submitted for these stretches by the official consultant envisaged construction of 18,637 km of Expressways at a cost of Rs 18 crore (Rs 180 million) per km for a four-lane project and Rs 25.5 crore (Rs 255 million) per km for a six-lane project.

Asked about the projects awarded by the ministry in the just-ended fiscal, Dutt said a total of 34 projects were awarded in 2009-10 while 16 bids are under process and 31 are likely to be finalised soon.

"These together amounts to award of projects for building 7,800 km of roads. We will award remaining projects, including pending projects, soon to achieve the target of award of schemes for constructing about 12,000 km of roads by June, as fixed by the ministry," Dutt said.

The ministry had last year formulated a 'work plan' for 2009-10 and 2010-11, aiming to award projects for building about 12,000 km roads each year.

However, later the ministry had revised the deadline from March 31 to June this year.