The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India (MoRTH) on August 14 said the huge cost overruns in many high-cost Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) projects such as the Dwarka Expressway project flagged by Comptroller and Auditor General is a gross misrepresentation of facts.
MoRTH said the average cost of special projects enveloping substantial lengths of bridges/via-ducts/tunnels under Phase-I of the Bharatmala Pariyojna stands at around Rs 152 crore per km.
The road ministry added that CAG in its report had said that the civil cost to construct the Dwarka Expressway project came in at Rs 250 crore per km, which is incorrect as the approved civil cost for four packages of the project is Rs 206.39 crore per kilometre and awarded civil cost is Rs 181.94 crore/km.
The CAG in its report on the implementation of Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana had said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)'s decision to opt for an elevated carriageway on the Haryana portion of the expressway has pushed up the construction cost to Rs 251 crore per km from the originally approved Rs 18.2 crore per km.
The road ministry pointed out that the project outlay of Rs 18.2 crore per km approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for the first phase of the Bharatmala Pariyojana was for the project as a whole and not for the Dwarka Expressway project, specifically.
MoRTH accepted that the average cost of creating the Dwarka Expressway would be lower by Rs 1,200 crore if constructed at grade as recommended by the CAG, but would have resulted in deficient development of the highway as per past practices reflected on National Highway-48.
The CAG in its report found that the NHAI Board approved the Dwarka Expressway with a "civil cost of Rs 7,287.29 crore at Rs 250.77 crore per km as against civil cost of Rs 18.2 crore per km approved by the CCEA".
The auditor noted that NHAI has awarded these projects to be completed between November 2020 and September 2022, but they are still incomplete.
"These projects had achieved physical progress ranging between 60.50 percent to 99.25 percent as on 31 March 2023," CAG said in its report.
The CAG also pointed out that in the Dwarka Expressway, "for no reason on record", an eight-lane elevated main carriageway and six-lane at-grade road were constructed across a 19 km stretch in Haryana.
The auditor pointed out that a 14-lane national highway could have been built at grade in place of the aforementioned carriageway and road.
The CAG also said there was no justification on record for planning or construction of eight elevated lanes for average daily traffic of 55,432 passenger vehicles.
It also pointed out that only six lanes (at-grade lanes) were planned or constructed for average annual daily traffic of 2,32,959 passenger vehicles, besides freight vehicles.
In October 2017, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved Bharatmala Pariyojana for the development of 74,942 km of national highways. The primary focus of the programme was on optimising the efficiency of the movement of freight and people across the country.
Bharatmala Pariyojana is the new umbrella programme used by MoRTH that focuses on optimising the efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country.
A total length of 34,800 km including the Residual National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) length of 10,000 km, was approved under Phase I of Bharatmala Pariyojana (BPP-I), for development up to September 2022, at an investment outlay of Rs 5,35,000 crore.
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