NEW DELHI: Private highway developers , who are struggling to get finances for road projects, are likely to offset government’s ambitious target to award 9,500 km during this fiscal. With only 600-odd km road stretches awarded during the first half of the financial year, now even senior National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials are conceding that they can award not more than 5,000 km till March, 2013.

At least 23 road projects awarded last year have missed their timeline to tie up funds. NHAI gives six months to contractors to get funds from banks and financial institutions for all build, operate and transfer (BOT) projects. Authority officials said contractors of these two dozen projects have sought more time to arrange funds. “Until all the contractors, who have bagged projects get finances, they would not bid for new projects. We have been talking to them regularly, but there is little sign of improvement. Even lucrative projects are not getting bidders,” said a senior NHAI official.

Hurdles to land acquisition, forest clearances and also lukewarm response of banks are the major reasons that are holding up the projects. In the past three months, both NHAI and highways ministry officials have held discussions with contractors and even representatives of financial institutions to find a way out to push awarding of road projects. However, there has been little headway.

“We must understand that contractors would start bidding once they get funds for projects that have been awarded. We expect the situation to improve. Moreover, we have also prepared the plan to award 4,000 km of highways with 100% government funding. This will bring some relief,” said highways minister C P Joshi, while speaking at the economic editors’ conference on Monday. He added that government has enough funds to start these projects.

Out of this, NHAI would have the share of awarding at least 2,900 km and Authority officials said they would achieve the target. Sources said that ramping up the target — awarding 8,500 km as mentioned in the budget speech to 9,500 km — was impractical given the adverse economic condition.

However, there is some good news on the construction side. NHAI has set the target to complete 3,000 km. Highways secretary A K Upadhyaya said that the daily construction of roads in all segments was close to 14 km per day.