To meet the massive funding requirement to achieve the target of road construction, the government is exploring the option of leasing out road projects to private concessionaires and is also working out modalities to return the unused land to its owners to lessen the increasing resistance by farmers in the land acquisition process, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Kamal Nath said in a recent statement.

Clearing the misgivings in the mind of rural masses he said that roads don belong to the NHAI, they belong to the government but NHAI is not able to meet the funding requirements and the company which gets a 25-year concession has no right as it does not own the asset (land). NHAI has the asset while the company concerned has a contract with the NHAI to build the given road stretch. The government is currently weighing the option to give roads on lease to resolve the funding issue as the leased roads will help developers raise funds from banks easily as they would have an asset to back their loan request, he added.

The transport minister said that the ministry is also addressing the contentious issue of land acquisition which is the biggest challenge in building highway. To smoothen the land acquisition process, the government is planning to bring in a provision that would allow the land to be returned to its original owner if it is not used for road construction, he said adding, that it would not apply to instances where work on a road has been stopped because of litigation. In addition, the government is also looking into concerns like taxation causing problems to road developers and foreign investors. The highway sector requires investments of $70 billion in the next few years of which $45 billion is expected to come from the private sector, including $10 billion from foreign investors.