Project review of all National Highway development

Project review of all National Highway development

Question: Who has chaired the meeting of reviewing the projects of all National Highway development which took place on 23 and 24 January 2020 at Gurugram, Haryana?
(a) VK Singh
(b) Rajnath Singh
(c) Nitin Gadkari
(d) Piyush Goyal
Answer: (c)
Related facts:

  • Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Rood Transport & Highways along with V. K. Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport & Highways reviewed projects of all National Highway development, on 23 and 24 January 2020 at Manesar near Gurugram, Haryana.
  • The review was done state wise. All senior officials of the Ministry, NHAI, State Governments, contractors, concessionaires, and consultants attended the review meeting.

Highlights of the review:

  • The major reasons found were delay in land acquisition by State Governments, delay in regulatory clearances such as for quarrying etc. In addition, lack of coordination and communication between and within government agencies continues to delay decision making.
  • About 740 National Highway Projects of 16 States were reviewed. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari went into the minutest of detail of every project making sure a clear path forward emerged to speed up projects.
  • The issue of timely approval of Extension of Time (EOT) and change of scope (COS) was particularly raised by the Contractors/ Concessionaire. As these timely approvals would help in facilitating lending by banks, an on-line tool called “GATI” has been launched and this will be closely monitored at the highest level.
  • All chief engineers in the Ministry and all members of NHAI are directed to organise “Review Mondays” on the first and third Monday of every month.
  • 22 Greenfield Corridors of length 7500 kms is being developed with a total capital cost of Rs. 3.00 lakh crore. These projects are being pursued vigorously and are being implemented on priority.
  • The construction of National Highways in terms of kms per day has been increasing and this is targeted to reach the level of 40 kms per day.
  • He also informed that the progress of FASTags was also reviewed. All 537 Toll Plazas are now ETC enabled and more than 1.37 cores FASTags have been issued. My FASTag App has crossed 10 lakh downloads.

Links:
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1600477