Four road builders qualify for Rs. 9,000cr project bracket

Mumbai : Out of the 114 road and highway builders seeking an annual prequalification, only four applicants have technically been cleared by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for road projects involving an investment of over Rs. 9,000cr. The highway players making it to the final four included Malaysian firm PLUS Expressways Berhand, Leighton Contractors (India), L&T Infrastructure Development Projects and Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Investment Limited.

Similarly about 50 applicants have qualified to bid for projects involving an investment up to Rs. 1,000cr, whereas 20 can bid for highway projects that involved investment between Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 2,000cr. A consortium of TRIL Roads Private Limited and Autostrade Indian Infrastructure Development Private Limited have pre qualified to bid for projects up to Rs. 7,900cr and GMR Infrastructure has made it for projects costing up to Rs. 7,000cr. Likewise four companies including Reliance Infra, IL&FS Transportation networks Limited, Isolux Corsan Concessions India and Lanco Infratech made the cut for projects up to Rs. 5,001 to Rs. 5,500cr.

Roads and highways builders including IRB Infrastructure Developers, GVK Transportation and Malaysian player IJM Corporation Berhad have made into the block for projects costing between Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 4,500cr. Similarly, NCC Infrastructure has made into the Rs. 3,950cr brackets and for projects involving an investment in the range of Rs. 3,001 to Rs. 3,500cr players including Gammon Infrastructure, Salini Costuttori SPA, Shapoorji Pallonji, Navayuga Engineering, IVRCL and HCC have also pre-qualified. The companies, which can bid for projects involving investment in the range of Rs. 2,001 to Rs. 3,000cr included Soma Tollways, Gayatri Project, Punj Lloyd Infrastructure, Oriental Structural Engineers, KMC Constructions Madhucon Projects and DSC Limited. The newly evolved process will enable the nodal agency to introduce e-tendering at financial bidding levels and the mechanism will also lessen the disputes between NHAI and road builders to a large extend.