Standard Post with Image

Ministry of Road Transport & Highways:Nigerian Minister for Works Meets Dr. C. P. Joshi

  • The Minister of Works, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Architect Mike O. Onolememen, MNIA, MNIM met Dr. C. P. Joshi, Minister of Road Transport and Highways here yesterday. The Nigerian Minister of Works was accompanied by the Chairman, Road Sector Reform Committee (RSRC) of Nigeria, Members, Secretary and officials of the Committee, and the representative of the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises. Dr. Tushar Choudhary, the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Shri A. K. Upadhyaya, Secretary along with senior officials of the Ministry accompanied Dr. Joshi.

  • The Nigerian Minister stated that the Nigeria is impressed by the progress made by India in development of the highways especially, implementing the Public- Private-Partnership (PPP) projects. He indicated that the objective of the meeting is to gather information on India’s road policy, learn the implementation policy, share information on road sector reforms and management of roads in India and also to establish a linkage between the two countries and NHAI and other road institutes in India.

  • The Nigerian delegation engaged in details of procedure and policy in India for identifying and preparing plans for the road connectivity, developing the medium five year term plans, solutions for financing the projects in view of budgetary constraints and other details regarding India’s Public Private Partnership projects.

  • Dr. Joshi explained the process of developing and finalizing the Financial Plans (Five year and annual plans) in India, the Government policy for providing the viability gap funding (VGF), incentive and policy framework for enhancing the private sector investment in road sector. He informed the visiting Nigerian delegation about the various modes of delivery of national highways adopted by India and the policy changes undertaken by India to tie over various constraints including financial resource crunch and earlier recessionary phases.

  • He pointed out that the recently developed ‘Engineering, Procurement and Construction’ –EPC model for undertaking the highways projects is focusing on containing the shortcomings of previous ‘item rate contracts’ and would be able to avoid the cost and time over-run in such cases.

  • Explaining the importance of having skilled and professional manpower to successfully undertake and implement the road projects, Dr. Joshi advised the visiting dignitaries to keep this requirement in view while drawing up the necessary programme. Minister for Road Transport and Highways informed the visiting Nigerian delegation about the Indian policy of competitive bidding, through e-tendering adopted by India to ensure the fair competition and transparency in the process.

  • Both the Ministers agreed that there is a scope for a meaningful interaction and exchange of knowledge and expertise from India, helping the Nigeria in their endeavour to undertake the massive road connectivity programme of construction of national roads of Nigeria. Both the Ministers agreed that the meetings have been very useful and they look forward to enhanced bi-lateral cooperation in coming future.

Source