NHAI to restructure 17 projects to make them viable: Nath

"They (17 projects) will have to be restructured. There will be projects which would not receive bids," Nath said on the sidelines of an Indian Chamber of Commerce event here. He said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) would look into restructuring the projects to make them viable before inviting fresh bids.

The NHAI had received no response for these 17 highway projects out of 95 for which it had invited bids during the last financial year. Earlier, the government had said the NHAI had restructured 47 schemes under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), mainly to increase their viability.

Asked whether the ministry will be able to achieve its target of building 20 km of roads a day, Nath said, "Construction of 13 to 14 km of highways is going on per day."
"We have set a target and we will work towards achieving it," he said. The NHAI has set a target for awarding contracts for building 23,744 km roads under the NHDP in 2010-11.

Last month, the government said contracts for a total length of 5,822 km of roads have already been awarded.