New Delhi, April 6 The government has set a base construction period of 12 months for highway projects valued up to ₹300 crore and 18 months for road construction projects costing between ₹301 and ₹500 crore.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said on Monday that the base construction period for National Highways projects in plain and rolling terrain should be based on the total civil cost, as there was a need to revise the existing guidelines based on scientific analysis.
Similarly, for the highway project with a total civil cost of ₹501-₹1,500 crore, the base construction period should be 24 months.
The ministry said that the base construction period should be extended, considering the criticality of the project – multiple ROBs, elevated structure length, or tunnel length – the ministry said in a circular.
The ministry also said that an additional 12 months should be added to the enhanced base construction period to compensate for terrain-related formation cutting and slope stabilisation.
These normative construction periods will apply to all national highway projects to be bid out either on engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) mode, hybrid annuity model (HAM), or build-operate-transfer (BOT) mode, on or after May 6, 2026.
This will apply to NH projects in hilly/mountainous steep terrain of Himalayan/northeastern states, such as Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, J&K other than Jammu, Ladakh, Sikkim, Darjeeling hills, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya.
According to the circular, the detailed project report (DPR) consultant shall also estimate the project-specific construction period based on a realistic project-specific work programme, which shall be presented during project appraisal meetings.
Previously, the standard EPC contract document specified timelines, under which the construction of a highway of length more than 50 km and a major bridge of less than 200 meters was required to be completed in 24-30 months.
The key drivers of the construction period are controlled by critical factors, such as the longest major structure (tunnel/cable bridge), pre-cast yard setup, production techniques & cycles, and non-parallel construction stages, it said.
Therefore, the ministry said, there was a need to revise the existing guidelines based on scientific analysis and understanding of completed projects, and prescribe a realistic construction period for civil works at DPR and bid invitation stage through a standard and scientific basis, duly considering typical geographical variations in Indian conditions reflecting terrain, volume, and structural complexity.
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