The Centre has outlined a slew of measures including an easier exit policy, simpler project approval and hike in capex to woo investment, spur economic growth and boost jobs. So will 2016 be the year India builds itself through roads? Bloomberg TV India caught up with NHAI Chairman Raghav Chandra.

What policies in your opinion have worked in reviving the road sector?

One of the significant developments in the last few months is the government’s absolutely determined resolve to get the infrastructure sector rolling.

In particular, in the highways sector, I have seen several extremely positive developments — which have bolstered the confidence, both of people who are in the highways management sector as well as those who are stakeholders, such as concessionaires, contractors, suppliers and so on — to feel excited about the progress in this sector.

There is a lot of traction happening on the infrastructure front, particularly on the highways front, and I am very hopeful of the way things are going.

We should be able to do a lot in this sector.

What are you doing as far as wilful defaulters are concerned?

We are working within the broad framework that all highway developers have suffered because land could not be provided or acquired for them in time so they couldn’t start their project…or various other clearances such as forest or environment clearance were not provided, or the railway facilities could not be given to them on time.

And, naturally, while doing this, there are some who do not deserve the same kind of softer treatment and I am afraid that we haven’t been able to help them.

How about debarring contractors from bidding for fresh projects?

We are working on a renewed framework which will be simpler.

It will be more focused, and be able to debar contractors from participating in future projects, especially the public private partnership projects, if they have a large number of incomplete projects, and if they have not been able to find the requisite equity to be able to participate in future projects.

How is the situation on accessing fresh funds through bonds?

So far funds really have not been so much of a difficulty for the NHAI because we have been raising a lot of toll revenues and getting cess.

But increasingly, as the price and the cost of land acquisition for building highways is becoming far more pronounced and expensive, we will need to have in place mechanisms to be able to raise funds from the markets as well.

Which is why initiating the tax-free bonds has been extremely useful and it will help to bridge the resources we require for this year, which is substantially more than the resources required the previous year because the overall expenses have gone up considerably — by 30 per cent.

We are happy to say that on the very first day tax-free bonds have been oversubscribed by as much as 2.12 times.

Against the ₹10,000 crore that we hoped to raise, we have already got offers for ₹21,206 crore.

So that shows the confidence of the Indian citizen and of the Indian corporate sector in the road building programme, the nation’s infrastructure efforts.

In the days to come we will be able to tap the market as and when we need.

As a part of the midyear economic review we have been talking about infrastructure investments, particularly by foreign companies. Have you seen any interest by foreign companies where building of highways goes?

Foreign funds are participating in the road building programmes — Macquarie, funds from Canada and Malaysia. So all this is just the beginning of the traction in the highway sector. And in the days to come I expect to see more avid interest of participants in the road programme, especially for various other products we would launch including expressways and long-term leases for toll.

All this is going to bring in more of foreign participation, participation of big companies and those who want to seriously look at infrastructure as a long-term area of their investment interest.

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