The Union Road Surface Transport and Highways Ministry is currently negotiating with the World Bank to secure Rs. 14,520 crore loan to convert over 6000 km of single lane national highways into two lanes, the Union Transport Minister Kamal Nath said in a statement recently.

He informed that the concessional loans, which would cover 80 per cent of the cost of the projects, would be needed to improve highways, connecting some of India’s remote regions. The projects would be awarded either on EPC or engineering procurement construction contracts. This is a departure from the government’s preferred build operate transfer model, where the developer finances and builds the project. In EPC contracts, the government awards the contracts for a specified fee, he claimed.

Commenting on the current road scenario, Sidhartha Das, an infrastructure expert said that nearly 19,702 km of the country’s 66,000 km roads network are currently single lane. It is never been a question of money but always a question of implementation. What is currently ailing and slowing down the highway building in the country is termination of contracts, conflict of interests and government must assign priority to assets on the ground.