Amid concerns raised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on highways deficit in the country, the government is looking at an investment of over 2.64 lakh crore in the road sector in the next five years, over 65% of which will come from the private sector.
"The pace of infrastructure development needs acceleration if the gaps are to be bridged. We are looking at an investment of Rs 2.64 lakh crore in the highways sector in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17)," Road Transport and Highways Minister CP Joshi told PTI.
Joshi said that National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will shell out Rs 87,000 crore while the remaining 1.77 lakh crore is envisaged from the private players.
The development came after the Prime Minister, while reviewing the progress of highways last month, expressed concerns that the country is deficient in terms of the quality as well as length of road network.
"We have to make an intense and sustained effort to ensure that this deficit is bridged," an official document said quoting Singh.
Joshi said all efforts are being made to accelerate road building process and during January-June period this year, the work has been completed in a length of 1,042 km.
"NHAI has achieved award of 5,058 km of highways in FY11, which is the highest till date," he said.
The Transport Ministry has set a target of awarding 7,300 km of roads in the current fiscal.
India has a large network of 3.3 million km roads out of which national highways constitute only 70,548 km.
To augment it the government plans to build 35,000 km of roads by 2014.
Meanwhile, growing interest by corporates in infrastructure sector amid reform measures like transparency in road sector has resulted in award of major projects this month.
NHAI has managed to managed to award three mega road projects, which would fetch the national highway authority hefty annual premium of Rs 683 crore from players like GMR.
Overall, the NHAI awarded four projects worth Rs 9,500 crore on July 29. Till now, NHAI virtually used to provide grants on schemes to road developers to make the projects viable.
