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Aiming to put construction of national highways on fast track, the Centre on Wednesday took two major decisions. 

The first being compensating developers in case of delays in highway projects and second, allowing the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to approve projects with civil construction cost of up to Rs 1,000 crore without going to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The decisions taken by the CCEA chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is expected to benefit at least 34 stuck highway projects.

“The Cabinet has taken a decision to allow the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to go into the merit of each case and wherever the delays are not attributable to the developer, extend the tolling period,”  Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters after the CCEA meeting.

“CCEA has given its approval for authorising the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to allow extension of concession period for all current projects (toll) in Build Own Transfer (BOT) mode that are languishing during the construction period due to causes not attributable to the concessionaire,” a statement said.
 
It said such permission will be subject to the condition that the tenure of the operation as laid down originally in the concession agreement will remain unchanged and the decision on eligibility of projects for extension of the concession period may be taken by NHAI on a case to case basis. The statement said NHAI will be authorised to pay compensatory annuities to the concessionaire corresponding to the actual period of delay not attributable to the concessionaire upon successful completion of the project.

In another decision, the government empowered the Road Transport and Highways Ministry to approve projects with civil construction cost up to Rs 1,000 crore without getting the nod from the CCEA. This will be implemented by segregating civil construction cost from capital component of projects.

“All national highway projects with a civil construction cost of up to Rs 1,000 crore shall be appraised by the secretary, Road Transport and Highways, and approved by the minister," the statement added. This will help to fast-track the projects by avoiding multiple stages of scrutiny and appraisal at different levels, said an official in the Ministry.