Roads worth Rs 6,000 cr in pipeline for West Bengal

Kolkata : West Bengal has been awarded projects worth Rs 3,360 crore covering 330 km in the past eight months and projects worth Rs 6,000 crore are in the pipeline for the state, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath said here on Wednesday.

Speaking at the 156th Annual General Meeting of Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Minister also informed that during the current financial year, the Government hoped to build 9,000 to 10,000 km of roads.

?Our plan is to build 20,000 km of roads every year ,? he added.

Nath also said the Government was looking to restructure the formulation of the bidding process in order to clampdown on companies making unrealistically low bids for road projects resulting in the roads not being built.

?We need to look at the formulation, whether there is a big gap between the lowest and the next lowest bid. In some cases there are huge gaps. We need to ensure that roads are built, and roads cannot be built when bids are unviable,? he said.

Nath added that out of 127 road projects out for bid, only 17 projects were deemed financially unviable and the Government would try to restructure these projects.

?There would always be certain projects which would not be financially feasible. Considering only 17 out of 126 projects were not bided for, I think it is quite satisfactory. But as in all such cases before, we would restructure these projects in future to make it viable,? the Minister said.