The National Highways Authority of India, is the government body in charge of developing National roadways. http://www.nhai.org/
Here are some interesting stats from their site.
- The Indian road network of 3.3 million Kms is second largest in the world.
- About 65% of freight and 80% passenger traffic is carried by the roads.
- National Highways constitute only about 2% of the road network but carry about 40% of the total road traffic .
- Number of vehicles has been growing at an average pace of 10.16% per annum over the last five years.
---The Golden Quadrilateral connects Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. It is now nearing completion.
---The North South East West Corridor connects Srinagar to Kanyakumari and Silchar to Porbander. Contracts are still being awarded, and work has only just begun.
Execution has been slow, but is steadily progressing.
To encourage investment from the private sector, the existing toll-based Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model (which made such projects commercially unviable), has been changed to also include either construction only contracts or schemes with annuities over the concession periods. 100% FDI under the automatic route is permitted for all road development projects
For long term investors in India, National Highway development will be crucial to increase the efficiency of multimodal logistics and road freight operations, debottleneck ports, and in so doing increase trade volumes. Road development, will also provide a boost to the auto sector(passenger cars and commercial vehicles) over the long run.