Hyderabad: The state government is all set to lease the Outer Ring Road to private players for 30 years. The proposal will be finalised soon, minister K.T. Rama Rao told the Assembly on Saturday. The government will collect a lumpsum amount as lease and allow the private companies to collect user fee from motorists. The government expects to bag over Rs 2,000 crore in a a decade by leasing out the ORR.
At present, the HMDA has been giving contracts to private agencies to collect toll. The contract is valid for a year and is renewed. Currently, the contractors need to pay a certain amount to the government and can retain any earning over that. The contractor does not spend money on operation and maintenance of the ORR, which are paid for by the HMDA.
In the proposed lease, the ORR wil be handed over to private players under the Toll-Operate-Transfer model. Under this, the contractor will pay for the operation and maintenance of ORR. The HMDA gets the lumpsum amount from the private players. This model is seen to reduce the involvement of the HMDA. The money generated from leasing out the ORR would be utilised by the government to fund future projects.
