Chandigarh, May 27: The delay in completing the six-laning of the 291-km Panipat-Jalandhar highway project has cost the concessionaire and its director dear.

In a major step towards removing hurdles to implementing national highway projects, the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) today relaxed forest clearance norms for these projects.

The state government has now been empowered by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to give environment clearance to small, 'B' category projects, which include hydroelectric projec

The drastic fall in private investment in road and highway projects has prompted Parliament’s standing committee on transport to suggest a review of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model – touted by many senior government officials as the only way to bring in money and developing infrastructure in India.

In 2012-13, only 9 projects offered by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) got bids whereas as many as 13 projects saw no takers.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on transportation, tourism and culture in its report on the demand for grants by the road ministry said that with private capital gravitating towards only profitable projects, unprofitable projects getting no bids must be developed using budgetary support instead.

A two–day workshop on World Bank aided Assam State Roads Project drew to a close at NEDFI House recently.

The road experts and engineers were one in their opinion that the ambitious project would bring about a total transformation in the surface communication in the State. The road experts dwelt at length on the modernisation of the road policies, engineering practices, asset management system, maintenance, institutional and human resource development, streamlining and computerisation of the key business process of PWD, safe corridor demonstration programme, capacity building in PWD.

Delay in completion of port road connectivity (PRC) projects and loss of toll revenue had resulted in a loss of around Rs 873.85 crore to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), said the C

The government approved two highway extension projects in Rajasthan involving investments of R 713 crore with assistance from the World Bank.

‘‘Government has approved a proposal for rehabilitation and upgrading of two stretches of National Highways in Rajasthan under Phase I of National Highway Interconnectivity Improvement Projects (NHIIP) with World Bank loan assistance,’’ said a release by the ministry of road transport and highways.

Slackened progress in road building is mainly on account of various issues including delays in environment and forest clearance and land acquisition, Parliament was informed today.

New Delhi:The finance ministry has relaxed norms for appraising and approving highway projects up to Rs 500 crore by the road transport and highways ministry, a move that will boost awarding of pub