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<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">R.P. Singh, chairman of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), has requested road secretary Vijay Chhibber to tell the Planning Commission to discontinue pre-appraisal meetings for public-private partnership (PPP) road projects as they were an unnecessary waste of time and resources.&nbsp;</span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">The pre-appraisal meetings were called by Gajendra Haldea, adviser to the deputy chairman of Planning Commission.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">&ldquo;It has been observed in the past that during pre-appraisal meeting the observations of Planning Commission are of repetitive nature even on the issues which have been settled in the past,&rdquo; Singh wrote in a 3 January letter to Chhibber. &ldquo;There is no value addition and the whole exercise of pre-appraisal by the Planning Commission is a waste of time.&rdquo; Mint has reviewed the letter.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Instead, Singh has asked Chhibber to tell the Planning Commission to send its comments to the road ministry for consideration at the Public Private Partnership Approval Committee (PPPAC) meetings. The PPPAC is a committee set up to approve PPP projects and is chaired by the secretary of the department of economic affairs.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Chhibber confirmed receiving the letter. &ldquo;The letter draws our attention to the fact that a PPPAC meeting earlier had taken a decision to discourage pre-appraisal meetings. We are checking the minutes of that meeting and if we find such a decision has already been taken we will inform the Planning Commission of the same,&rdquo; he said.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">In the letter, Singh cited the minutes of a 14.09.2011 meeting of the PPPAC as saying, &ldquo;while a single pre-appraisal meeting with all members of the PPPAC may be convened to clarify issues, multiple pre-appraisal meetings for the same projects at the cost of delays in issues of appraisal notes by Planning Commission may be reviewed. Member secretary, Planning Commission indicated that such meetings may not be encouraged as PPPAC is the forum for discussion and clearances with regard to PPP projects and all matters may be brought to the notice of PPPAC.&rdquo;</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Source-On Request</span></span></span></p>