Back to BOT projects: PMO tells NHAI to stop building highways

India’s path to economic recovery faces another obstacle, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking the state road builder to stop constructing highways after its debt ballooned almost seven-fold over the past five years.

“National Highways Authority of India totally log jammed with unplanned and excessive expansion of roads,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote to NHAI in a letter dated August 17. “NHAI mandated to pay several times the land cost; its construction costs also shooting up. Road infrastructure has become financially unviable.”