In a significant push for infrastructure development, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to road projects worth a staggering ₹20,688 crore. The approval includes the country's largest-ever highway project to be developed under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model, marking a major revival of public-private partnerships (PPP) in the sector.
Details of the Mega Greenfield Corridor
The flagship project is a 374-km greenfield Nashik-Solapur-Akkalkot corridor in Maharashtra. Under the BOT model, a private developer will invest the required capital of ₹19,142 crore and maintain the infrastructure for a concession period of 20 years. During this time, the developer will recover costs through toll collection before transferring the asset back to the government.
Addressing the media, Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted that the Nashik to Solapur project is the largest PPP-BOT initiative in the highway sector. He stated that past issues like arbitration, risk sharing, and traffic projection uncertainties have been studied in detail, leading to a significantly improved and risk-balanced concession agreement.
"Once this model becomes successful here, then this can also be adopted in other infrastructure sectors like railways, transmission, ports, airports," Vaishnaw said, indicating the government's broader strategy.
Second Project: Upgrading Odisha's NH-326
The Cabinet also cleared a second project involving the widening and strengthening of a 206-km stretch of NH-326 in Odisha. This project, with a capital expenditure of ₹1,526.21 crore, will be executed under the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) mode. It will upgrade the existing two-lane road to a highway with paved shoulders.
This upgrade is expected to spur the overall development of southern Odisha, particularly benefiting the districts of Gajapati, Rayagada, and Koraput. It will improve intra-state connectivity and enhance linkages with Andhra Pradesh.
Strategic Importance and Future Outlook
The six-lane, access-controlled Nashik-Solapur-Akkalkot corridor is a strategic step under the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan. It will provide connectivity to major cities like Nashik, Ahilyanagar, and Solapur, eventually linking to Kurnool. The corridor is proposed to connect to the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and the Agra-Mumbai corridor, creating a vital link from the west coast to the east coast.
Industry experts maintain a stable outlook for the highways sector. Rajashekar Reddy of ICRA Ltd projected that vehicular traffic growth will be 3-4% year-on-year in FY2027. He expects toll collection growth to improve to 5-9% in FY26 and 5-8% in FY27, supported by healthy collections and manageable maintenance costs.
This massive investment underscores the government's focus on enhancing India's road network, which currently stands at over 146,560 km of national highways, with 4,612 km constructed in the current fiscal year up to November 30.
