Focus on construction

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to undertake construction of the Patna-Buxar four- lane (125km) highway under engineering procurement construction (EPC) mode.

This comes after a private agency given the task under build-operate-transfer (BOT) mode failed to even start the work. “We took this decision as the previous construction company, Gammon India Limited, failed to execute the project under BOT mode and ran away from its responsibility. NHAI made the agreement in February 2012 and the project was supposed to be completed in 30 months but the company just sat on the project,” a senior NHAI official said.

Under BOT mode, a private firm is given the task of road construction and the right to collect toll from users to realise the cost of construction. Once the period of toll collection is over, the firm is supposed to hand over ownership of the road to the government.

The government bears a part of the project cost, which is known as viability gap funding (VGF).

Generally, the firm that demands lowest percentage of VGF from the government to carry out the work is awarded the project contract.

The VGF is given in advance for the work to commence.

The official further said: “We not only terminated the agreement with Gammon India Limited but also fined it Rs 11 crore for breach of agreement. Now, a fresh tender would be floated by March 2015 to carry out the work under EPC mode. Because of delay in the project, the cost of the project has also been revised from Rs 1,129 crore earlier to Rs 1,600 crore now.”

Under EPC mode, the government provides the funds and the agency which takes up the work is paid as per work carried out by it.

Work on this is likely to begin in June 2015.

Once the Patna-Buxar road is constructed, it will save a lot of travel time. Buxar-bound commuters get stuck for hours on the Koilwar bridge (south) over the river Sone. Even the road is in a bad shape.

The single-lane Koilwar rail-cum-road has been a well-known bottleneck for vehicular traffic and movement is allowed from one side at a time due to narrowness and strength of the bridge.

The NHAI official also said: “For the convenience of commuters, there would be several bypasses at many places. It is an ambitious project and we are determined to complete it in a stipulated timeframe.”