Govt Plans to Construct Over 50,000 Km of Roads

While addressing a meeting of major investor groups in New Delhi, Secretary – Road Transport and Highways Giridhar Aramane said the ministry is planning for construction of over 50,000 kilometres of highways, a majority of those will be 4 and 6 lanes wide.

Mr Giridhar Aramane called upon the investors to consider that InvIT has scope for broad basing the investor groups and said that it is an attractive vehicle for mobilising funds for road development and assured the investors that the asset base of InvIT will be selected carefully to yield attractive returns and mitigate inherent risks.

The secretary also assured that efforts will be made to facilitate realisation of value for investment, the statement said.

Mr Aramane added that the functioning of the investment manager will be democratised by bringing investing partners into board of directors to manage the company in a professional manner.

The project managers will be selected on professional and efficiency basis.

InvITs are instruments on the pattern of mutual funds and are designed to pool small sums of money from several investors to invest in assets that give cash flow over a period of time.

The Union Cabinet has already approved setting up of InvIT. In addition, the statement also said that this will enable National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to monetise completed national highways that have a toll collection track record of at least one year and NHAI reserves the right to levy toll on the identified highway.

Government has embarked on a transformational programme of implementing National Infrastructure Pipeline to realise the potential of Indian Economy. Expansion of roads will give a boost to the economy by reducing logistic costs, connect, hinter-land to hubs, and cater to rapid growth in vehicle ownership, it added.

Source: IBEF