NHAI Receives 17 Bids for INR 8,300 Crore Rameshwar-Paradeep Coastal Highway Project

September 08, 2026

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has received 17 bids for the 160-km Rameshwar–Paradeep Coastal Highway in Odisha. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) confirmed the development this week. It indicates strong private-sector interest in one of Odisha’s major greenfield highway projects. The bids were opened on August 28, 2026. NHAI is currently evaluating them on technical grounds. The names of the 17 bidders have not been officially disclosed. No contract has been awarded yet.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the project in June 2026. The approved capital cost is INR 8,300.79 crore. The project is still at the pre-award stage. Receiving bids and starting technical evaluation does not mean that a contract has been awarded or construction has begun.

What is the Rameshwar-Paradeep Coastal Highway Project?

The Rameshwar-Paradeep stretch now out to bid is one segment of a much longer envisioned corridor. The full project, first announced in 2015, is a 346-km greenfield highway intended to connect Rameshwar in Odisha's Khordha district with Digha in West Bengal, and its construction has been delayed by more than a decade, attributed in part to repeated alignment changes under Odisha's previous state government.

The Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC) gave final approval to the project in November 2025, with the PPPAC record listing a project cost of INR 4,961.60 crore. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) subsequently approved the two-package project in June 2026 at a combined total capital cost of INR 8,300.79 crore. The current 17 bids relate only to this 160-km Rameshwar-Paradeep section; a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the remaining portion of the broader 346-km corridor is still under preparation, meaning the wider Digha connection remains a longer-term phase rather than part of the current tender.

How Many Bids Has NHAI Received, and What Stage is the Project At?

NHAI received a combined total of 17 bids across the project's two construction packages, evaluated separately. MoRTH confirmed the bid count this week but has not yet disclosed the identities of the bidding companies, and the technical evaluation stage, assessing bidder qualifications and compliance before financial bids are opened, is ongoing.

This places the project between CCEA approval and contract award: the capital cost and route have been sanctioned at the government level, private firms have submitted competitive bids, but no concessionaire has yet been selected and no construction has begun. Any reporting describing the project as "awarded" or "under construction" at this point would be premature relative to the stage MoRTH has confirmed.

What is the Total Cost and Length, and How is It Divided Into Packages?

The Rameshwar-Paradeep coastal highway spans 160 km at a combined capital cost of INR 8,300.79 crore, divided into two construction packages that reflect different traffic and design requirements along the route. Package I covers the 79.4-km Rameshwar-Konark stretch, designed as a four-lane, fully access-controlled highway. Package II covers the 80.7-km Konark-Paradeep stretch; this section will be built as a two-lane road with paved shoulders rather than a four-lane highway.

The corridor was originally envisioned as a four-lane highway along its full length, but the Konark-Paradeep section was scaled down to two lanes based on assessed current and projected traffic volumes for that stretch, a design decision distinct from, and not a reduction of, the overall project's approved capital cost or its Rameshwar-Konark four-lane specification.

What is the Hybrid Annuity Mode, and Why is It Being Used?

Both packages are being procured under the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM), a public-private partnership structure NHAI uses widely for national highway projects, under which the government funds a portion of construction cost during the build phase while the private concessionaire funds the remainder and recovers it, along with a return, through annuity payments from NHAI over the operations period rather than through toll collection from users directly.

HAM is designed to share construction and revenue risk between the public and private sectors differently from a pure toll-based Build-Operate-Transfer model, and its use here is consistent with NHAI's broader procurement approach for large, capital-intensive national highway corridors where traffic and toll-revenue certainty in a still-developing coastal stretch may be harder to project than on an established, high-traffic route.

What Engineering Challenges Are Involved in Developing a Greenfield Coastal Highway?

A greenfield highway running along a coastal stretch presents engineering considerations distinct from an inland corridor. Route alignment has to account for coastal geography, existing settlements, and environmentally sensitive areas along Odisha's coastline, balancing the shortest practical path against these constraints across both packages' differing design specifications.

Geotechnical investigation for a coastal alignment typically has to address soil conditions that can include sandy, low-bearing-capacity coastal soils and higher groundwater tables than an inland route would face, directly affecting pavement design and foundation requirements for structures along the corridor. Drainage infrastructure is particularly critical for a coastal highway, given the exposure to monsoon rainfall, tidal influence in low-lying stretches, and the need to manage surface water without compromising the road's structural integrity over its design life.

Environmental planning has to account for the corridor's proximity to ecologically sensitive coastal and estuarine areas, since a highway of this scale typically requires environmental clearance processes addressing potential impacts on local ecosystems. And land acquisition across the corridor's alignment, spanning multiple districts, remains one of the most schedule-sensitive elements of the project, needing to be substantially resolved before construction can proceed at the pace the project's employment and completion targets assume.

How Could the Highway Improve Connectivity in Coastal Odisha?

If developed as planned, the corridor would provide an alternative route to the existing NH-16 and NH-316, both of which currently carry traffic through Khordha, Bhubaneswar, and Cuttack as part of the Golden Quadrilateral network. The new coastal alignment is designed to improve direct connectivity to Puri, Konark, and Paradeep Port, and to the upcoming Puri International Airport, while also facilitating transportation to developing ports such as Astarang and Subarnarekha and providing connectivity across Khurda, Puri, Kendrapada, and Jagatsinghpur districts.

NHAI estimates the corridor could cut travel time between Rameshwar and Paradeep by roughly two and a half hours and cites faster access to tourist destinations including the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Puri Beach, and the Konark Sun Temple as a further benefit. MoRTH has stated the project has the potential to generate approximately 53.6 lakh direct man-days and 67 lakh indirect man-days of employment during construction, figures reflecting the government's own construction-phase estimate rather than a confirmed outcome, since the project has not yet moved to the construction stage.

Seventeen bidders have come forward for a coastal highway that has taken over a decade to reach the tender stage, a signal of confidence in the project, not yet a guarantee of its delivery. Whether the Rameshwar-Paradeep corridor actually cuts two and a half hours off the journey to Paradeep, and on what timeline, will depend on the engineering and construction discipline applied once NHAI moves from evaluating these bids to awarding and executing the contract.

IMARC Engineering’s Perspective

The strong bidding response NHAI has received for the Rameshwar-Paradeep coastal highway, 17 bids across two HAM packages for a project only recently approved by the CCEA, reflects healthy contractor confidence in a corridor that has taken over a decade to reach this stage from its original 2015 announcement.

At IMARC Engineering, we see the technical evaluation now under way as the point where the project's engineering fundamentals will matter as much as its commercial terms: the eventual concessionaire will need rigorous geotechnical and drainage engineering suited to coastal soil and monsoon conditions, environmental planning that addresses the corridor's proximity to sensitive coastal ecosystems, and construction sequencing that manages land acquisition and civil works across two differently specified packages without letting either stretch's schedule slip against the other's.

As NHAI moves this project from bid evaluation toward eventual contract award, the engineering and project-management discipline the selected concessionaires bring to the Rameshwar-Konark and Konark-Paradeep packages will determine whether the corridor delivers the connectivity and travel-time benefits the government has projected, on a timeline that finally closes out a project first announced more than ten years ago.