Centre plans Amravati Dhule-Gujarat border mega highway project

The Union road transport and highways ministry has identified the Amravati Dhule-Gujarat border mega highway project covering 480 km, which will require an investment of around Rs1,079 crore. Bids for the Amravati Dhule – Gujarat border project will be invited in October this year according to a report.

This mega project will be taken in line with recent 555 km Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway project worth Rs 6,700 crore through which the government expects the winning bidder to pay government a premium of up to Rs400 crore for winning the project. Noted infrastructure developers like Hindustan Construction Company, L&T, Tata Infrastructure and IRB have queued up for this project. Eleven highway construction companies have been shortlisted in the first round of bidding for the project, the financial bidding for which will take place on July 29.

The government hopes that the mega projects such as Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad and Amravati Dhule-Gujarat border will fetch premiums, or negative viability gap funding (VGF) —- the amount a bidder pays to the government to bag a project. In the normal course, the government chips in with VGF, which is capped at 40% of the entire cost of the project. In five of the recent BoT (toll) projects, however, the government has received Rs823.53 crore from the private sector participants, marking what is called negative VGF.