Construction of National Highway Development Project (NHDP) could come to a halt in three months if adequate steps are not taken by the government to address problems caused by the rising prices of inputs like steel and cement, the highway builders warned. "In three months, if nothing is done National Highway Builders Federation (NHBF) will have to stop construction work,' said coordinator of NHBF V C Verma after a meeting of the federation members with PM Manmohan Singh on Tuesday. NHBF sought PM's intervention on issues concerning price rise and demanded that a committee be constituted to look into their case for increasing toll rate or the contract period for projects offered on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. The builders told PM that prices of steel, cement and bitumen have seen an increase of more than 100%, making it virtually impossible for them to proceed on BOT projects without any price escalation reimbursement. The federation told Prime Minister that national highway projects "cannot proceed since builders cannot afford the construction when they are unable to bear heavy losses on account of price escalation.' They also pointed out escalation clauses provided in many contracts in highway construction are not sufficient to accommodate the extra-ordinary variation and, therefore, these cost increases should be borne by the developers. The builders also pointed out that the cost escalation based on the movement in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is not adequately covering the real increase in prices of inputs like steel, cement and bitumen. The builders said the price increase in WPI is not in tandem with the market price increase of construction materials and demanded that the index be corrected to match the real increase in prices of essential inputs. PTI