Economics
Modi's $5 Trillion GDP Goal Hits a Hurdle: Debt at Road Builder
- Prime Minister’s office wants NHAI to become asset manager
- Cites high land costs, says road infra has become ‘unviable’
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India’s path to economic recovery faces another obstacle, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking the state road builder to stop constructing highways after its debt ballooned almost seven-fold over the past five years.
“National Highways Authority of India totally logjammed with unplanned and excessive expansion of roads,” the prime minister’s office wrote to NHAI in a letter dated Aug. 17. “NHAI mandated to pay several times the land cost; its construction costs also shooting up. Road infrastructure has become financially unviable.”