Focusing on infrastructure creation, finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget 2016 speech said that the government is targeting building 10,000 kms of national highways. Further, upgradation of 50,000 kms of state highways is planned in 2016-17, said Jaitley. "Nearly 85 per cent of the stalled road projects have been put back on track," Jaitley said.
The finance minister also said he has proposed an allocation of Rs 55,000 crore for roads and highways in the budget for 2016-17. "This will be further topped up by additional Rs 15,000 crore to be raised by NHAI through bonds. Thus the total investment in the road sector, including PMGSY allocation, would be Rs 97,000 crore during 2016-17," Jaitley said.
This comes at a time when the roads and highways ministry under Nitin Gadkari had sought an overall increase in outlays for his ministry at Rs 70,000 crore. The roads minsitry is going full throttle at building 100 km of roads a day as opposed to a reported 18 km currently. Additionally, the roads ministry is also banking on a new funding model under which the government will pay an annuity to the successful bidder for a project to cut financial risks. The road ministry has received bids for eight projects under the plan, and will seek offers for another 27 before March, the minister said recently.
The push to roads and highway development comes at a time when a recent report by Crisil had estimated that around 5,100 km of highway projects were at risk of not being completed because of delays in land acquisition and clearances.
Meanwhile, the finance minister said the government was going ahead and implementing the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) "as never before". "This Scheme had suffered in the past because of underfunding. The allocations in 2012 and 2013 were only Rs 8,885 crore and Rs 9,805 crore respectively. We have substantially increased the allocation in the last two years and have now allocated Rs 19,000 crore in 2016," the finance minister said in his speech.
He added that the government's goal is to advance the completion target of the programme from 2021 to 2019 and connect the remaining 65,000 eligible habitations by constructing 2.23 lakh kms of roads. "Accordingly, the pace of construction which is currently 100 kms per day, as compared to the average of 73.5 kms during 2011 will be substantially stepped up," Jaitley said.
Together with the capital expenditure of the Railways, the total outlay on roads and railways will be Rs 218,000 crore in 2016, he said.
"We further expect to approve nearly 10,000 kms of National Highways in 2016-17. This will be much higher than in the two previous years. The pace of completion of road projects will also rise to nearly 10,000 kms in 2016-17. In addition, nearly 50,000 kms of State highways will also be taken up for upgradation as National Highways. The total outlay for infrastructure in BE 2016-17 stands at Rs 221,246 crore," the FM said in his budget speech.
(PTI)
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