Rural roads worth Rs. 1.2L-cr aboard PPP boat

New Delhi : Speeding up the tardy rural road building work under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), which involved a total investment of Rs.1.2L- cr, the Union Government is all set to open it up to the private sector under the public private partnership (PPP) model. The move will not just do away with the financial crunch the sector is currently facing but also ensure speedy completion of the road projects, apart from promising a very healthy returns to entrepreneurs on their investments. As the rural road network cannot be build and run on revenues levied by way of toll charges, the government is contemplating annuity based schemes to extend incentives to private players to attract them to carry out these projects.

According to reports trickling in from various sources, the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Rural Development have already given their go ahead signal to the switch over plan. The newly conceived plan was thread-barely discussed at the recently held high level steering committee on the transport sector, which is spearheaded by the member Planning Commission, B K Chaturvedi, for the upcoming 12th Plan period. As per the newly evolved strategy, private builders would be empowered to design, finance, construct and maintain roads on a model where the government, as per the terms and conditions of the contract, is obliged to pay them on an annualized basis after the completion of the project. The sector has been provided with an outlay of Rs. 20,000cr for the current financial year and the government is all set to initiate the new process by awarding 500km long rural roads on the basis of a pilot project.