Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) signed a concession agreement with a Gujarat-based construction company on the Rs 5729-crore Ring Road project today. The target schedule of the project is four years.
Contributing towards the development of the North-East region of the country, NHAI has signed a concession agreement with M/s Dineshchandra R Agrawal Infracon Pvt. Ltd in the presence of NHAI Chairman Santosh Kumar Yadav. The 121-km-long Guwahati Ring Road shall be developed at a total cost of Rs 5,729 crore in Build Operate Toll (BOT) mode with zero grant. The concession period of the contract is 30 years, including a construction period of four years. Providing impetus to the project, the Assam Government will bear 50% of the land cost and provide an exemption from royalty on aggregates and the state portion of GST, contributing about Rs 1,270 crore. Thus, the gross project cost is about Rs. 7,000 crore.
According to PWD officials, the Guwahati Ring Road project will have three sections, including a 56-km-long, four-lane, access-controlled Northern Guwahati Bypass, widening of the existing 8-km bypass on NH 27 from four lanes to six lanes, and improvement of the existing 58-km-long bypass on NH 27. Notably, a 3 km-long major bridge over the Brahmaputra River will also be constructed as a part of the project.
The Guwahati Ring Road will provide seamless connectivity to long-distance traffic plying on the East-West Corridor of NH-27, which is the gateway to the North-East Region of the country. The development of the Ring Road will help to decongest Guwahati city and neighbouring northeastern states by bypassing major traffic coming from West Bengal/Bihar to Silchar, Nagaland and Tripura. The project will also provide seamless connectivity to major towns in the region, including Siliguri, Silchar, Shillong, Jorhat, Tezpur, Jogigopha, and Barpeta.
The Government of India has been encouraging public-private partnerships for build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects. To encourage adoption of projects in BOT mode, various modifications in the Modal Concession Agreement (MCA) of BOT (Toll) and provisional BOT (Toll) have been made in the recent past. This is the first contract signed on the basis of the modified Modal Concession Agreement, which will pave the way for more such contracts.
Also Read: Guwahati Ring Road: Assam’s Mega Highway Project Set To Take Off
Also Watch: