NEW ROAD BUILDING DECISIONS IN INDIA
Official approval is being given to widen the Madhya Pradesh/Maharashtra Border-Nagpur highway section to four lanes. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is planning the project using private sector concessionaires, which will be chosen using a two-phase tendering process.
The cost of the project to widen a 95km stretch of the road to four lanes is expected to be in the region of US$246.77 million. The concession period will be for 27 years and this time frame will include the construction phase, which is expected to take around 30 months once work is underway.
Further, two highways are planned in India’s Punjab State at a cost of US$1.11 billion. One project will be a 26km city expressway in Ludhiana and the other will be a 184km six-lane highway to link Phagwara and Mohali. The six-lane road, which will be expanded later to ten lanes, will reduce the travel time between Phagwara and Mohali to one hour compared to two and a half hours at present.
