Road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath set the agenda for his ministry today, asking the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to meet every two weeks and review national highway project issues with developers. The minister, who will meet state road ministers over the next two weeks, will himself step into action and meet developers directly once in three months.

The minister plans to meet developers for a second round of discussions on June 8 to discuss matters relating to arbitration and pending bills that the NHAI has to clear. Today, in the minister’s first meeting after taking office on June 1, road developers raised a host of issues regarding land acquisition and contractual glitches on account of the model concession agreement (MCA). Talking to reporters after the meeting, Nath said one of the key concerns was the MCA. In fact, developers had gone to court last year over the short-listing system devised by the Planning Commission for the request for qualification (RFQ) stage, which is a part of the MCA. Answering a question on whether controversial clauses in the RFQ document will be changed, the minister said, “If it speeds up the process and work is delivered, it will be done. We have sought suggestions from developers to this effect.”

Another issue raised today was the confusion over financial viability of projects. “The problem is that there is a gap between our assessment of a project and that of the NHAI. Usually, unrealistic traffic volumes are projected and the investment required is lowered. When developers go to the bank with their estimates, there is a mismatch in the figures, which creates problems for getting loans,” Soma constructions CMD Rajendra Prasad Maganti said.