Project price greater than doubled to Rs 10.64 lakh crore underneath Bharatmala Pariyojana: ICRA

The undertaking price underneath the Bharatmala Pariyojana (BMP) programme has greater than doubled to Rs 10.64 lakh crore owing to the steep rise in enter prices and a rise in land acquisition prices, score company ICRA mentioned on Monday.

Bharatmala Pariyojana is the biggest freeway infrastructure programme in India which goals on the growth of 34,800 kilometres of nationwide freeway corridors at an funding of Rs 5.35 lakh crore.

“Pending the cabinet approval for the revised cost of Bharatmala Phase-l, project awarding activity in the recent quarters took a beating, declining by 48 per cent YoY to 2,595 km during 7mFY2024 compared to 5,007 km during 7mFY2023,” it mentioned.

The figures are for the primary seven months of this fiscal in comparison with the year-ago interval.

ICRA mentioned it expects the awarding exercise to contract over 30 per cent YoY (Year-on-Year) in FY2024.

Giving extra insights, ICRA VP & Co-Group Head Ashish Modani mentioned nearly 95 per cent of the highway awards by the Ministry of Roads and Transport and Highways (MoRTH) within the final 5 years have been awarded by way of the hybrid annuity mode (HAM) and the engineering, procurement and building (EPC) route, whereby your entire funding burden lay on the ministry.

“The burden on MORTH in case of BOT (Toll) projects is much lower, given the substantial cost escalation in the BMP and consequent increase in funding requirement,” he mentioned, including that the MORTH has thus shifted its deal with to BOT (Toll) initiatives.

ICRA mentioned whereas the common variety of bidders for the EPC and the HAM initiatives stood at 15 and eight, respectively, within the case of BOT (Toll), it remained beneath 5.