Date:21/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/21/stories/2008122153940800.htm

Karnataka

‘Concrete’ toll for asphalted road

Staff Reporter

Successive governments allowed NICE to get away with violation of FWA

Bangalore: Users of the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) road, already upset at the high toll rates, would be outraged to learn that they are paying a toll fixed for a concrete road while being offered only an asphalted highway.

Documents available with The Hindu show that it is not Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE), the promoters of the controversial BMIC project, who are to be held accountable for this unfair toll. Successive State governments allowed the company to get away with this violation of the Frame Work Agreement (FWA) of April 1997, and a Government Order issued in November 1995. By collecting a toll fixed for a concrete road, for one that is merely asphalted, the company and theKarnataka government are guilty of overcharging the public. After all, as engineers of the Public Works Department will attest to, the cost of asphalting is about 50 to 70 per cent lower than the cost of concreting a road. The relevant Government Order (No. PWD 32 CSR 95) of November 20, 1995, is clear. It states: “The cement concrete surface and expressway should be designed to have a life span of 60 years and should conform to the best international standard.” The reference was to a four-lane peripheral ring road (41 km), link road (9.8 km) and the expressway (111 km). Subsequently, the State government on September 4, 2000, entered into a Toll Concession Agreement (TCA) with NICE, allowing it to collect the toll.

Letters

Through April-August 2002, NICE, in a series of letters, asked the government for permission to lay two asphalted lanes as an initial measure instead of four concreted lanes. It argued that asphalting was a faster process and that a completed road would satisfy the project’s financial lenders. The company assured the government of completing work on the two-lane asphalted road within 24 months from the date of financial closure (March 29, 2003). It said that it would “simultaneously construct” the remaining two lanes with concrete surface and later upgrade the asphalted road to concrete surface. NICE promised the government that it would complete the 62-km concrete road within six years of financial closure instead of eight years as per the FWA. The company asked the government to allow collection of toll as soon as it finished building the two-lane asphalted road.

The State government initially frowned on these requests, calling them “deviations” from the FWA and TCA. An Empowered Committee headed by the Chief Secretary at its meeting on June 12, 2002, observed: “There is no provision to construct asphalt road as per the FWA, and the TCA allows collection of toll only for four-lane concrete road… such deviations from the agreements require Cabinet approval.”