Various reforms initiated by the government to ensure speedy approvals and clearances aided the pace of construction of roads, which improved 40 per cent from an average 4.3 km per day in FY2014-15 to 6 km in FY2015-16 and is likely to reach 11 km by FY2018, says Crisil."The material improvement in the pace of execution can be attributed to policy reforms by the NHAI and facilitations by the government, which are also reducing delays. Given this, we expect the average construction per day for NHAI projects to nearly double to more than 11 km by fiscal 2018," Crisil Research Director Ajay Srinivasan said in a statement.
The key policy reforms include easing of the clearances process, ensuring 80 per cent land acquisition before the award of project, premium rescheduling, allowing developers to fully exit operational road projects, and introduction of the hybrid annuity model.
"Given these reforms are largely aimed at reducing risk, private participation is set to pick up," he said.