Contractors to be fined for repeat accidents on national highways

To prevent road accidents and fatalities, the Highways Ministry has decided to penalise contractors if more than one accident happens in a year on a particular stretch of national highways, built under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, a senior government official said on Sunday.

Road Transport and Highways Secretary V Umashankar said, “The ministry has revised the BOT document, and now contractors will have to undertake crash management and take corrective steps if more than one accident happens in a particular period on a highway stretch built by them under the BOT model.”

“If more than one accident happens on a particular stretch, say 500 m, then the contractor will face a penalty of Rs 25 lakh. Penalty will increase to Rs 50 lakh if an accident happens next year,” he added.

Umashankar said the ministry has identified 3,500 accident-prone stretches.

National highway projects are executed mainly in three modes: build-operate-transfer, hybrid annuity model (HAM) and engineering procurement and construction (EPC).

The concession period for projects, including maintenance, on the BOT model is 15 to 20 years and 15 years for HAM.

The concessionaire is responsible for the maintenance of respective NH stretches within the concession period of the project.

Only in the case of EPC projects, the defect liability period (DLP) is five years for the bituminous pavement works and 10 years for concrete pavement works.

For toll-operate-transfer (TOT) and InvIT projects, the concession period, including maintenance, is 20 to 30 years.

Concession period for projects on operate-maintain-transfer (OMT) is generally nine years.

Umashankar also said the government would soon formally launch a cashless treatment scheme for road accident victims across India after making suitable modifications in the scheme by incorporating technical and project learning during the pilot project.

Road accident victims will be entitled to cashless treatment of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for the first seven days at designated hospitals, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) had said in a notification issued in May this year.

The scheme is aimed at reducing the number of deaths arising from road accidents every year due to a delay in timely medical intervention.