While the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) attempted to resurrect interest in the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model for highway construction and announced its plan to award at least 8% or 500 km of the 6,500 km-targeted road development in FY23 through the BOT route, only 3% was achieved at the end of the financial year.
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In fact, the BOT model accounted for 96% of all projects awarded in FY12, which fell to nil in FY21 as NHAI shifted to the Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) and Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM) routes to plug the funding gap.