The government planned to build 12,000 kilometres of roads, including highways, at an estimated cost of Rs 1,00,000 crore in the current financial year, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath said today.

“We are committed to the new target of laying 20 kilometres of roads per day, and to achieve this target there needs to be a quantum jump in construction activity across the country,” Nath told reporters after addressing the ‘Build India- Road infrastrcture’ summit.

Citing land acquisition as a major hurdle to speedy construction of roads, the minister said henceforth projects would have to acquire 80 per cent of the required land before bids were allotted.

Nath also said he wanted state governments to play a more proacive role in road projects. “States must be stakeholders in these projects. If we do not get satisfactory participation from them, we are ready to abandon these projects.”

The minister said the government was looking at various innovative financing instruments to fund road projects and attract both the domestic and foreign investors. Also, the government was planning to involve pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, equity funds, besides other available investment channels like banks, to fund the road projects, which would require an investment of over Rs 2 lakh crore from the private sector over the next five years, he said.