The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways
(M/o RT&H) has undertaken the strengthening and up-gradation of National
Highways under National Highways Development project (NHDP) in various phases.
Stretches developed under PPP mode are being maintained to the desired
performance standards by the Concessionaire during the concession period.
However, for the stretches developed with support of public funds predominantly
during the development of Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and North-South–East-West
(NSEW) corridor, a need was felt for seamless maintenance of these high value
infrastructure assets. Thus it was contemplated to create a scheme for tapping
the private sector’s efficiencies in operation, fee collection and maintenance,
as service life of high-valued road infrastructure asset depends on timely
maintenance before the performance level sinks below the minimum threshold
standards.
Presently, maintenance of
stretches implemented through public funds is being done separately through
short term Operation and Maintenance Contracts funded from budgetary resources.
User fee is being collected through different agencies (wherever applicable) on
annual contract basis and deposited into the Consolidated Fund. Change of
maintenance or toll Contractor on annual basis by calling bidding process every
year consumes considerable time and energy without delivering the good
maintenance of roads. It was felt that there is scope for further improvement
for better maintenance and ensuring high standards of riding quality on
National Highways. The OMT scheme is expected to synergize the process of
collection of user fee and operation and maintenance of road stretches, in
quest of achieving these objectives.
A Model Concession Agreement
(MCA) for operation and maintenance of highways through Private Parties on
Operate, Maintain and Transfer (OMT) basis has already been approved. Under the OMT basis of PPP, the operation and
maintenance of the roads is outsourced to a private entity for a definite
concession period. The basic principles of OMT are similar to Build, Operate
and Transfer (BOT) with construction, operation and maintenance of highway
reduced to merely operation and maintenance of highways. A long term,
performance based maintenance and operation contract is bound to be more
effective and yield good results. Some of the key features of OMT Concessions
are as follows:
Details:
(i)
The project
section of the Highways is handed over to the Concessionaire for a fixed
concession period. The concessionaire is responsible for carrying out the
annual and periodic major maintenance during the concession period of the
project section of the Highways, apart from ensuring smooth operation of
traffic in the stretch including Incident Management.
(ii)
The concession
period is so decided that the Concessionaire is required to maintain the
stretch for a period almost equal to the life of the renewal work, before the
necessity to upgrade such stretch so arises from 2 Lane to 4 Lane or 4 Lane to
6 Lane etc.
(iii)
Concession
periods shall remain between 4 to 9 years, after which, the concessionaire has
to transfer back the road after the concession period.
(iv)
The
concessionaire is authorized through Government Gazette notification to levy,
collect and retain user fee from road users.
(v)
Most projects
are expected to be revenue positive and the concessionaire is required to pay
annual premium of agreed amount during the process of bidding with the amount
of annual premium being the bidding parameter.
Implementation Strategies
and Targets
These contracts would be awarded
by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highway/ NHAI after the approval of
investment proposal by the competent authority as per prescribed procedure.
Major Impact
This will help ensure the regular
maintenance of all the upgraded National
Highway sections developed through the public
funded initiatives or otherwise, in an efficient manner for the period of the
concession awarded to OMT concessionaires, without any liability to the
Government. By doing this, the public
faith in the PPP policy for development and upgradation of National Highways
would get a boost and wider acceptability.
No. of beneficiaries
The users of National Highways from
all over the country will be benefited in a big way as the traffic on well
maintained roads will be smooth.
Work Plan for OMT projects:
For
2012-13
·
6 projects with total length of 963 Kms have already been awarded.
·
2998 Kms of stretches have been identified to be undertaken during the
year.
For
2013-14
·
517 Kms have been identified to be undertaken during next year.
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Sanjay Kumar/M/o RT&H/17.08.2012