The surface transport and highways minister, Kamal Nath, has asked the deputy chairman of the planning commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to keep off his ministry.

He told the Yojana Bhavan boss not to interfere with the ministry’s decision to change the model concession agreement and the qualification requirements of bidders for road projects.

“The planning commission should confine itself to planning only,” Nath told media on Tuesday in reply to a question on the commission’s reservations about the changes in bid documents.

His ministry, Nath said, had to look at many facets of the project bidding process, “which we are doing”.

“The planning commission gives us inputs and the ministry is using them.”

Yojana Bhavan had raised concerns over the ministry’s target to award 12,652 km of road projects in the present fiscal year. It doubted the ministry could award contracts for more than 3,794 km this year and advised that a reasonable target be fixed.

Nath contested the commission stand and said the target was not unreasonable. He did admit though that awarding contracts was difficult. “The commission has approved the work plan for road projects. I asked Ahluwalia and he said there was no such issue,” Nath added.

Under the 2009-10 work plan, only 14 projects for 1,300 km have been awarded; bid for 20 more projects for 2,000 km have been received. Another 23 projects for 1,700 km are on offer.

“Awarding of projects is a problem. But we hope, with so many changes in place, we should be able to award a significant number of projects by June this year,” Nath said.

About the separate qualification requirement for mega projects, Nath said this was necessary, as it would attract a different set of investors.

“The investors in a Rs 1,000 crore project and a Rs 5,000 crore project will be different. Only people with the capacity will invest in big projects,” he said.