The Highway Ministry has approved 13 projects worth ₹10,300 crore, for building 672 km of national highways. The projects will be awarded by March-end.

The approval came at a meeting chaired by Sanjay Mitra, Secretary, Road Transport and Highways Ministry. The projects approved include part of the Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway development project, which was awarded to GMR Infrastructure on a high premium and subsequently terminated. In this stretch, three will be awarded on a build-operate-transfer (Toll) basis, while one will be awarded on a hybrid annuity model. These would not require any further approvals from the public-private-partnership appraisal committee.

Of the total projects, three are on build-operate-transfer-(toll) basis, three on hybrid annuity model and the remaining on engineering procurement contract.

Till January 31, 7.000 km of highways were awarded and 4,600 km of highways were constructed.

In a related move, the National Highways Authority of India Chairman Raghav Chandra, while inaugurating the NHAI day, said that the Authority is readying to implement electronic toll collection, which will offer a discount of about 10 per cent in the first year, 7 per cent in second and 5 per cent in the third year onwards, to the users.

He added that contractors need to manage their finances better, with operational focus. Chandra had pledges for highway employees as well. It included the need to maintain integrity, ethics, and honesty in dealing with concessionaires, contractors, consultants and other vendors connected with NHAI.

Chandra also had a message for the consultants who prepare project reports: to avoid preparing project reports from Google maps.

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