Your travel experience on national highways is set to change! NHAI plans wayside amenities on greenfield access-controlled highways
Your travel experience on national highways is set to change! NHAI plans wayside amenities on greenfield access-controlled highways
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is planning to include wayside amenities in the design of new greenfield access-controlled highways to enhance the overall travel experience. According to the current plan, these amenities may serve the purpose of drone landing, helipad construction, and opening retail stores to sell local handicrafts and fresh farm produce.
According to an ET report by Yogima Sharma, NHAI is targeting 1,000 wayside amenities over the next five years–one at every 50 km along national highways–against 600 envisioned earlier in partnership with the private sector.
“Of these, 800 will be developed under the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode, wherein NHAI will provide the land and all requisite permissions along with supervision while the private player will be responsible for development, operation and maintenance of the facility for 15-30 years,” a senior government official was quoted as saying.
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Bigger facilities that are spread over five acres or more will be developed as highway villages, while those with less than five acres will be developed as highway nests.
Oil marketing companies (OMCs) have traditionally offered basic amenities at fuel stations along highways nationwide. As wayside amenities are now included in the comprehensive planning of expressways, acquiring land for these facilities will be coordinated with highway development. According to experts, the government must scale up operations to attract positive responses from private operators.
“However, the government will have to package and structure these in a manner that provides scale to the private sector to invest its time and money in the project while ensuring that the risk gets diversified,” said Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, senior director & global head, consulting, Crisil Market Intelligence and Analytics.
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