Government entices foreign developers to build roads in India ahead of general elections

November 8, 2013

Dailybhaskar.com   |

 (In pic: A photograph of the Grand Trunk Road)

 

New Delhi: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MRTH) is to conduct road shows in foreign lands to entice companies abroad to take up road projects in India. The ‘road shows’ are to be conducted primarily in Australia and China over next few months, according to media reports.

‘One of the proposals (of a presentation to be made to PMO) is to do road shows abroad to ask investors to participate in PPP (public-private partnership) projects in India’, Business Standard quoted a MRTH official saying.
The situation to approach foreign developers has arrived due to Indian firms pulling away from domestic projects owing to various legal hurdles arriving every now and then.
The domestic developers — such as GMR and Larsen and Toubro — have disengaged from investing in road developing projects because of land acquisition difficulties, funding constraints, etc.
The idea to approach foreign developers has emerged in a time when general elections are round the corner. Road development is an issue not to be ignored ahead of the elections.

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