Three NHAI Wins in Five Months Reprice Highway Risk

Chittorgarh–Udaipur: The Core Claim

TRIL Roads went to the tribunal asking NHAI for Rs 367 crore on the 93.5 km Chittorgarh–Udaipur six-laning. Had it won, every highway contractor holding a Covid-era claim would have repriced it upward. The tribunal rejected most of it.

Rs 238 crore of that demand was delay and cost escalation through the Covid period. NHAI keeps that money.

TRIL Roads, the Tata Realty and Infrastructure roads entity, writes it off against a corridor it has already built.

Three Awards, One Pattern

Read three awards in five months as a single document.

- Bareilly–Sitapur in July: Rs 3,177 crore claimed against NHAI, Rs 46 crore awarded.
- Tumkur–Chitradurga in June: Rs 1,202 crore secured in NHAI's favour.
- Chittorgarh–Udaipur now.

The pattern is unmistakable. The authority is litigating to an award instead of buying peace, and tribunals are endorsing the contract as drafted.

Covid Relief and the Contract as Written

The Covid reasoning carries the real weight. MoRTH's 2020 relief circulars extended schedules. They did not reopen the price adjustment clauses.

Tribunals are now treating force majeure as a schedule remedy. Contractors spent four years assuming an arbitrator would soften that reading. Chittorgarh–Udaipur prices the assumption.

The Commercial Consequence

Now the commercial consequence. Highway contractors have carried arbitration claims as near-receivables, sometimes inside resolution plans and lender covenants.

A realisation rate near 12 per cent, which is what Bareilly–Sitapur produced, resets that asset class. Lenders will discount claim books harder, and equity waiting on an award has to be replaced from somewhere else.

The asset is intact. NHAI's exposure on the corridor is contained. The damage lands on the contractor's balance sheet.

Awards, Enforcement, and the Next Tender

An award is not cash, though. TRIL Roads can still move under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act, and NHAI's enforcement will be counted in years of hearings.

NHAI has won the disputes. The harder question is whether TRIL Roads and its peers price the next BOT and HAM tranche at a premium that reflects this record, or stop bidding.

An authority that wins every arbitration and then cannot fill its tender list has solved the wrong problem.