Rs 40,000-cr road projects on hybrid model by March: Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said the government will award projects worth more than Rs 40,000 crore on the new hybrid model by March end and another 100 projects will be bid out next fiscal year.

“We have already prepared 28 projects on hybrid model. Out of these, we will award four soon. We will award projects worth over Rs 40,000 crore by March,” the minister said adding that for the next year the government will identify 100 projects on this hybrid model.

The minister’s announcement comes a day after the Cabinet approved hybrid annuity model for building roads to fast-track highway projects, revive the Public-Private-Partnership mode and attract more investments in the sector.

The hybrid annuity which was approved on Wednesday is expected to revive the interest of investors in the sector who were shying away from bidding road projects due to equity crunch and other issues. Under this model, the government will provide 40 per cent of the project cost to the developer to start work while the remaining investment has to be made by the developer.

The minister, who held a meeting with various stake holders of the highways projects here, also said the government is hopeful of resolving 19 stuck highway projects worth Rs 40,000 crore.

In the meeting which was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and representatives of various banks and developers, Gadkari said the government has already terminated 41 projects which were stuck for various reasons.

As many as 384 projects were stuck for the last 10 years due to various issues such as land acquisition, forest and environment clearances, litigations, and financial problems, he said adding that his government has “terminated 41 projects and solved problems related to all these projects barring 19 projects”.

The most of the stuck projects include key national highways in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.