Nitin Gadkari invites US businessmen to invest in Indian highway projects

New Delhi, Sept 13: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has called for investors from the US to come forward and invest in roads and highways projects in India which is a gold-mine for investors. Inaugurating virtually the 19th Indo-US Economic Summit of The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce he said, "The United States of America and India are prominent democracies of the World with strong bilateral relations."

 

He said, "We are natural partners and have lot to contribute for mutual growth. Both the countries have always shown mutual trust, respect and co-operation on the social, economic and strategic front. The theme chosen this year- “The New Agenda for next 25 years”, will set the roadmap for strengthening our relationship".

 

Gadkari said road infrastructure plays a critical role in the growth of the Indian economy as 70% of goods and nearly 90% of passenger traffic uses the road network to commute. In 2014, we had around 91,000 Kms of National Highway network. At present, this Network has reached around 1.47 Lakh Kms. The Government is dedicatedly working towards expanding National Highway network to 2 lakh kilometers by 2025.

 

 

The Minister said, "we are constructing 27 Greenfield Expressways of 10,000 Kms across the country with an investment of Rs. 5 lakh Crores that is about 60 billion dollars. These corridors result in 14% reduction in travel distance between the key economic centers and this would further ensure reduction in Transportation cost by 2.5%." In addition, "there would be saving of around 110 crore liters of fuel and reduction of carbon dioxide emission by 250 crore kg every year," he said.

 

The Minister said, "We are bringing innovative and investor friendly products like InvIT to allow retail investors participate in the funding drive. We are designing the products so that retail investors can get good Annual Returns which are more than the Fixed Deposit rates."

 

He said the chamber should take a lead and identify areas where our talented human resources can contribute to design best Financial Instruments to enable investments in Indian Infra Space. "We have well-developed framework for Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) in the highway sector. Asian Development Bank has ranked India at the first spot in PPP operational maturity and also designated India as a developed market for PPPs. All project documentation, contractual decisions and approvals are now being done through the digital portal", he added.