Road, housing projects worth Rs 14,500 cr cleared

The government has approved 20 new highway and housing projects at a total investment of Rs 14,538 crore (Rs 145.38 billion).

The approval for the projects proposed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), respectively, was given by a Finance Ministry panel.

"The 46th Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC) meeting, chaired by Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance... granted approval to 20 projects, including 10 projects, each of MoHA and MoRTH," an official statement said.

The road projects include widening of various National Highways in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Chhattisgarh under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), which is MoRTH's flagship programme.

These include six-laning of the Agra-Etawah highway, four laning of the road stretch from the Maharashtra/Karnataka Border to the Sangareddy Section, four-laning of the Hospect-Chitradurga section and four-laning of the Cuttack-Augul

road stretch.

In all, the projects involve widening of 1,178 km of roads at an investment of Rs 10,720 crore (Rs 107.20 billion).

With respect to the MoHA's proposals, the PPPAC approved housing projects worth Rs 3,818 crore (Rs 38.18 billion), involving the construction of 18,456 units, the statement said.

The housing units will be built at Siliguri, Greater Noida, Kolkata, Agartala, Srinagar, Jamshedpur, Gujarat, Shillong, Bhubaneswar and Sivagangai.

The statement said the panel has approved 42 projects so far this year at a total cost of Rs 35,227.14 crore (Rs 352.27 billion).

Since its constitution in January, 2006, the PPPAC has given sanction to 255 proposals at a total estimated expenditure of Rs 2,42,399.35 crore (Rs 2.42 trillion).

These include 198 proposals on national highways, 27 housing proposals, 22 ports schemes, five sports stadia, two airport proposals and one proposal each on tourism infrastructure and railways.