New players bags govt-funded national highway projects

The rollout of numerous National Highway (NH) projects, fully funded by the government over the past six to seven years, has led to the emergence of several new players in this space, while the traditionally known players have faded into the background.

None of them are in this space, while the traditionally known players have taken a back seat. None of the previous construction majors found in the top 10 players taking up high-quality NH projects, offered in government funding or engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode, reveal a list of tentatively qualified companies awarded by National Highways. Authority of India (NHAI).

The NHAI has released a list of highway builders that are tentatively qualified for NH projects running under three different modes: EPC, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT Toll), and Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM). The prequalification of road builders has been achieved on the basis of the bidding documents submitted by these companies between October 2021 and March this year. This prequalification is linked to the estimated project cost for the government.

The list of the 68 firms uploaded to the NHAI website as provisionally qualified for EPC contracts includes Construction Major Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) comes in at 11 and Ashoka Buildcon at 17. Companies such as Apco Infratech, Gawar, Dilip Buildcon, GR Infra and Iron Triangle are pre-qualified for projects costing up to Rs 1,580 crore. Organizations like NCC and Reliance Infra have pre-qualified for projects costing Rs 1,187 crore.

Normally, bidders submit bids for civil works in various projects. The technical and financial capacity of the same bidder is always assessed by technical departments, which takes more time.

The NHAI said preliminary qualified bidders lists have been prepared to avoid repeated analysis.

For road developers, EPC projects are the preferred works because they do not involve any risk and receive payment for the works performed.

Now the small players have become big companies because they have the manpower and machines to complete jobs on time.