THE POWER OF “e”

An insight to e-tendering

The national highway authority of India (NHAI) has been claiming to build on an average of 10 kilometers of roads per day from past few months because of a unique innovation of C.P Joshi (minister of road transport and highways), called “e-tendering”.

Through e-tendering NHAI is inviting entrepreneurs for open and transparent competition to build roads in high speed. In this way, the entrepreneurs can make their own financial calculations and can build roads without government help.

While giving interview to a very famous magazine, GOVERNANCE NOW, C.P Joshi explained how e-tendering works. He further added, assuming that Rs. 100 is needed to build 1km of road then, according to the existing PPP model, the concessionaire will arrange for Rs. 60 from the financial institutions on his own and get an aid of Rs. 40 from the government. After NHAI opened the bidding the bidders said that, “we do not need Rs. 40 from the government. We will collect the entire sum of Rs. 100 from the financial institutions and after completing the project we will give money to NHAI from the toll tax”. And now, NHAI has awarded 13 contracts for which it will be getting more than Rs. 1600 crore per annum for the next 25 years with provision of 5% annual hike.

With the innovation of e-tendering comes a big question for the public: IS THIS PROJECT TRANSPARENT ENOUGH? Our minister of road transport and highway, C.P Joshi convinced the interviewers of GOVERNANCE NOW by saying,

• The bid is open for everyone and this is mandatory for every project which came into picture after March 2011.
• NHAI has introduced e-procurement simultaneously.
• NHAI has also provided a user friendly platform on face-book for users where they can raise issues related to the roads.

NHAI are in two more interventions. Both are in pilot stage. In the first one, the vehicles will carry a tag on their window panes, which will be captured on camera while passing through the toll plaza, without stopping on the way and money will be directly charged from the bank account from the vehicle owner. In the latter one, NHAI is making arrangements with Google Earth to show the alignments of the roads, so that the planner sitting at a distant place can analyze the road structure and check if it needs deviation in its alignment, and problems of the people can also be addressed.

 NHAI has introduced another IT intervention. One can now register vehicles online and get a driving license anywhere in the country and all the data will be available centrally. A policeman can have all the details of toll tax breakers without approaching the state government.

E-tendering can bring a revolution in buildings roads and open opportunities for new private players for effective and transparent highway infrastructure, which were not seen in the government projects. Each project has its own set of pros and cons. The project is working efficiently up till now; let’s hope that it continues the same way.