After assuming charge in challenging times, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Secretary Giridhar Aramane had his task cut out. With road construction being badly hit and the sector grappling with liquidity issues, the focus has been on ensuring the momentum witnessed in the steady progress of highway construction is restored quickly.
With the year drawing to a close, Aramane spoke on a range of topics, including allocation from the Budget, steps taken to reduce the financial stress of road developers and working in a nimble manner amid the upheaval.
Edited excerpts: Q: Due to the COVID-19 situation, more people will look to use their own vehicles. With State Road Transport Undertakings struggling, what steps are you taking to ensure they bounce back? Aramane: Public transport had taken the worst hit due to COVID-19. Travel as such was curtailed and the fear of contracting the virus has further led people to avoid public transport. Our approach has been to adopt measures to safeguard the public and have given them enough money to ensure that hygiene is maintained in the buses. Secondly, we give very detailed guidelines to the state governments and have ensured that the buses do not become the carriers of the virus. We are also facilitating a contactless ticketing system within these teams and we recently had proposals from two to three states to establish the necessary infrastructure. So, we are helping the state governments to establish the required infrastructure.
Q: The Highway Ministry has stepped up monitoring of road projects. Can you please explain in detail what are the exact steps you are taking? Aramane: The pandemic affected the road construction sector and the labour availability had gone down in April and May. So for a fortnight, the entire construction came to a standstill. So when it revived, it started on a very slow note and we tried to build confidence among the contractors. We instructed our regional offices and field offices to call the contractors and plan the construction. The medical infrastructure was also in place and we slowly restarted with maximum labour, especially in those districts where the migrant labour had gone back into their native places. Substantial work was done in those districts to provide employment. We may be able to achieve the targets we have and I will say that the developers have cooperated. The government also has come out with a lot of measures to ensure that they don't suffer due to lack of liquidity.
The stress on developers of approaching the banks and proving their credentials has come down. We compensated many of them for the revenue lost and gave them more time to execute the projects. We also extended the concession periods as per the contractual terms.
Q: The allocation from the Budget this year was Rs 91.823 crore, with Rs 53, 742 crore as capex and Rs 9,489 crore as revenue expenditure. Will you spend the entire amount or will you spend more than the budgeted amount on capex?
Aramane: We have already spent Rs 64,000 crore and may spend slightly above the allocation. We are a part of the national infrastructure pipeline and roads contribute at least 20 percent to it. To achieve that, we need to spend quite a lot. So, we are in discussions with the Finance Ministry and we are confident that we will get the allocations as required by the national infrastructure pipeline targets which have been given to us.
Q: The finance minister has already tasked PSUs and agencies like NHAI to ensure there is no compromise on capex to boost job creation. What are your plans?
Aramane: Each kilometre of road constructed will generate jobs for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The 11.000 km target will generate employment at a large scale for all three categories.
Q: With COVID-19 upending everything around us, how difficult has it been to manage operations in a ministry tasked with spearheading the country’s growth story? Aramane: This pandemic is peculiar, in the sense that everybody was afraid. So the fear brought in so much of cooperation, even in a very diverse country like ours. The co-operation from all sectors, state governments, the developer community, and actually the labourers, or consultants. It was so thorough, so complete, that we had actually had no problems at all in getting the necessary services from any one of the parties. We stuck to the protocols and selected the projects which would result in immediate recovery of the economy without causing people to assemble at one single place. We encouraged the contractors to use machines and establish separate areas in the labour camps. In our offices, we mostly did work via video conferences and wherever possible, people went to the field to motivate those working on the ground. So, it was a satisfying experience because of the cooperation.
Q: The government is looking at doing away with cash transactions for toll on national highways. How are you looking to meet the operational challenges?
Aramane: So far we have achieved only 75 to 80 percent coverage through FASTags. But once we start telling the people, making them aware that FASTag is the easier way. NHAI is spearheading the effort and I hope we will be able to reach all nooks and corners of the country.
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