Road projects: Proposal to reschedule premium payment gets FinMin nod.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has approved a proposal by the Rangarajan panel to permit rescheduling of premium payment for stressed highway projects. This comes nearly a year after the proposal was first discussed.

Now, the Highway Ministry and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) need to notify the rules and a cut-off date by which developers will say whether they would like to make use of the proposal to postpone premium to continue doing their projects.

Premium is the amount offered by a developer to the Government to bag the right to widen a road, maintain it, and collect toll from the road users over a 20-30 year concession period.

HBL