The Indian Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved the four laning with paved shoulders of the Jharpokharia-Baripada-Baleshwar section of National Highway Five in Odisha.

This approval is the final hurdle before the project is awarded to a private entity. The deadline for submission of bids is 24 January 2014. There are eight teams shortlisted for the project:

• BSCPL Infrastructure
• Dilip Buildcon
• GKC Project
• IL&FS Transportation Networks
• KMC Constructions
• Oriental Structural Engineers Pvt.
• SEW Infrastructure
• Sadbhav - GKC Consortium

The approval was given under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase IV on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT-Annuity) in Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) pattern.

The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs.7,607.3 million (US$124 million), including the cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities. The total length of the road will be approximately 80.6 km.

The project will expedite improvement of infrastructure in the state of Odisha and also reduce the time and cost of travel for traffic, particularly heavy traffic, plying between Jharpokharia-Baripada-Baleshwar.

This road stretch is intercepted by two major National Highways namely NH-6 (Kolkata-Mumbai route) at the starting point and NH-60 towards Kolkata at the end point.