Public-Private Partnership: NHAI may take BOT route for new projects

Enthused by investors’ rekindled interest in pure public-private-partnership (PPP) projects, the share of which in new awards have precipitously declined for nearly a decade and drawn a blank in last two financial years, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is now planning to award around 450 km highway stretch through the build-operate-transfer (BOT) (toll) model in 2021-22.

Though it has not yet fixed the project target for the next fiscal, NHAI is likely to keep the target at 4,500 km, same as the current fiscal. Till February of the current financial year, NHAI has awarded around 3,600 km highway projects in which EPC has around 60% share while the remaining has gone through the hybrid annuity model (HAM).