Road infrastructure in India: Analysing ppp model and its current status in national highway projects

India has the second largest road network across the world. The roads and highways play a key role in development of the country. Difficulties in project financing and low quality of work, led to involvement of private sector in development of road projects along with the government thereby sharing the risks. However, due to insufficient funds and weak legal framework, the road infrastructure development is struggling to keep pace with growing traffic. There are various Public Private Partnership models and each one can be uniquely designed to meet exact needs of local community through special project management skills. But there are various risks and challenges in front of concessionaire and there must be proper risk allocation and risk management. In past few years, government has undertaken various initiatives and structural reforms which are discussed in detail in this paper. Simultaneously, there are considerations to promote private participation from not only India but abroad. This paper aims to examine evolution of PPP model and its current status in road infrastructure, challenges and reforms.