End of the road for 3 highway projects.

The government has decided to terminate three highway projects worth Rs 3,000 crore because of poor performance by contractors.

'We have decided to terminate three projects,' said Raghav Chandra, chairman of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on the sidelines of the 24th annual general meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in India.

The contracts to be terminated are for the Rs 410-crore Rohtak-Jind project in Haryana, the Rs 1,021-crore Haridwar-Dehradun project in Uttarakhand and the Rs 1,650-crore Ranchi-Jamshedpur project in Jharkhand.

The Haryana project was awarded to Vijai Infrastructure on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model. It began work in October 2013. NHAI suspects diversion of funds in this project.

The Uttarakhand project was awarded to a joint venture of the Era Group and Russian company OJSC-SIBMOST on the annuity model. Work began in November 2011. NHAI found the companies were unable to bring in the necessary funds in the stipulated period.

The Jharkhand project, in which work began in December 2012, was awarded to Madhucon Projects on the annuity model. NHAI suspects diversion of funds in this project as well. These three projects are part of 19 that were stuck for various reasons. In January, Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met developers and bankers to get them moving.

'We have given more time to a few other concessionaires (developers). I don't want to name them yet. We will take a decision on their projects soon,' Chandra said.

BS