by R Jagannathan
Smart ministers, smart staff as well as smart execution come inwards possible to shell dumb laws similar the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-era Land Acquisition Act, which mandates payment of iv times marketplace value for state compulsorily acquired for of import route as well as other projects. Due to this act, in that location was a existent danger that infrastructure tin instruct unviable, alongside i written report pointing out that state acquisition costs accept soared from nine per cent of full projection costs inwards 2009 to 37-55 per cent inwards some novel route projects at i time underway. How thence has Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari managed to build around 10,000 km of national highways inwards 2017-18, at a charge per unit of measurement of close 28 km per day, two-and-a- one-half times faster than inwards the final twelvemonth of the UPA?
One obvious argue is that the ministry building is raising coin past times putting already operational national highway projects on the block. The coin raised from these bids volition endure used to build novel highways at higher cost. Some 75 highway projects that are already generating toll revenues are to endure auctioned on a TOT basis – toll, operate as well as transfer.
Two, smarter alignments are existence used to select downward state acquisition costs. The received wisdom is that when traffic grows, y'all should widen the existing route network to handgrip to a greater extent than traffic. The ministry building has establish that if y'all modify alignments to connect the same 2 points alongside roads that run along some other path, y'all tin non alone purchase state cheaper, but likewise ensure faster traffic for slightly longer distances.
For example, the ministry building is said to endure seeking a novel alignment for the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway which volition lower state acquisition costs dramatically from the previously estimated Rs 6.43 crore per hectare. An Economic Times tidings written report today (4 April) quotes Gadkari equally proverb that a novel Mumbai-Delhi Expressway volition endure built alongside a novel route alignment thence equally to minimise costs.
In 2017-18, the National Highways Authority of Bharat built 9,830 km of highways at Rs 1.2 lakh crore – which gives an average of Rs 12.2 crore per km, including land, financing, administrative as well as construction costs.
When alignments are changed to fund novel parallel highways, non alone volition costs fall, construction volition non delay traffic on the quondam roads.
A bonus: novel alignments hateful the benefits of state acquisition volition snuff it to a novel grouping of state owners as well as farmers, as well as non the same people who ain state along the quondam highways. This is i means of creating novel wealth inwards rural areas, where landowners inwards novel underdeveloped areas create goodness from changed route alignments. Unviable farming at i time has some other leave of absence option.
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