Bharatmala project may face delays of around six years, says ICRA

The major reasons for delay can be attributed to delays in land acquisition, significant rise in land acquisition, and bottlenecks due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The final completion cost is also expected to be 15-20 percent higher, given the impact of rise in commodity prices on construction costs, ICRA said.

The completion cost of the Bharatmala program is estimated at Rs. 10.63 trillion after factoring in cost escalations up to December 2021 and is 99 percent higher than the initial estimates, owing to a substantial rise in land acquisition cost and steep increase in input costs.

Awarding of all projects under the program is expected to be completed by 2023-24. However, there may be a decline in awarding projects in 2023-24, as it is an election year.

The Bharatmala project is being implemented by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Roads Wing of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH), and the National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) with majority of the project awarding being undertaken by the NHAI.

During the last seven years, around 60 percent or 20,632 km of total 34,800 km of highway length has been awarded as of December 2021. As of March 2022, 23 percent or 8,134 km of the total length under BMP has been completed.