NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has recommended the road transport ministry to take measures such as hiking the toll charges across the country and postponing certain projects to later dates to avoid NHAI getting into a debt trap.Flagging that the present financial health of NHAI is not sustainable in the long run and would create bigger issues in the road infrastructure sector in the future, the parliamentary standing committee on road transport and highways ministry has observed that the amount of debt the highway authority has to repay as on date, is more than twice the ministry’s present annual budgetary allocation. “The debt servicing cost is estimated to rise up to Rs 34,846 crore in the FY 2021-22 and would continue to be a sizeable figure in the following years. The Committee feels that the NHAI needs to take urgent proactive measures to solve its financial issues,” the panel said.Both the ministry and NHAI have maintained that the issue of increasing debt is being blown out of proportion as the authority has been raising funds after government authorisation.The panel has raised serious concerns about delay in completion of highway projects and inadequate allocation for maintenance of highways. The reported which was submitted in Parliament on Thursday observed that just one out of four projects were completed on time in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Another 47 projects out of the 205 projects completed (23%) during this period witnessed delays of over two years. It also fund that 18 projects were delayed by more than five years. It has recommended setting up of a Special Delay Mitigation Cell to chalk out solutions for delays.On the allocation for maintenance of highways, it said, “The committee is distressed to note that while the budgetary allocation to the ministry has increased to almost double, from Rs 47,109 crore at RE stage in 2015-16 to Rs 91,823 crore at BE stage in 2020-21, the amount earmarked for the maintenance and repair of NHs head has fallen by 3.77%, from Rs 2,702 crore at RE 2019-20 to Rs 2,600 crores at BE 2020-21.”It recommends that increasing the pace of construction of new highways should not be the sole focus of the ministry. Quality of roads is equally important.