'India to start building 20-km roads/day by April'

I / Kuala Lumpur January 4, 2010, 16:13 IST

Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath said here that India has achieved construction of nine-km roads per day and the target of developing 20-km daily would be accomplished by this April.

"We have reached nine-km per day of road construction and will hit our target of 20-km a day by April," Nath, who is here to hold talks with the Malaysian government to invite them to enter the highway construction sector in India, said.

Thirty-five Malaysian companies are already involved with various infrastructure projects in India.

To have a 20-km of road construction a day or 7,000 km of roads a year, there has to be 20,000 km of work in progress, he noted. The minister said that between November 2009 to June 2010, contracts worth $20 billion would have been awarded.

Referring to land acquisition, he noted that states would also need to address the issue. Nath stressed that mega infrastructure projects would not be awarded to small companies.

"Medium-sized companies should take more jobs and aspire to become bigger. If small companies take big projects, I may not have the roads," he said, adding such companies may not even be able to get finances.

"We don't want companies to take on more than they can chew. We also don't want hoarding of contracts," he added.