Coming soon! Six-lane roads to connect India's metros

India's metros -- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai -- will soon be connected through six-lane roads, Minister for Road Transport and Highways CP Joshi said on Monday.

“Concessions for nearly half the length have already been awarded. The balance would be awarded within the next one year,” Joshi said at a conference on 'Challenges and opportunities in public-private partnership in national highways'.

The minister said six-laning of the Golden Quadrilateral project was one of the priorities of the central government. Apart from the four metros, the project, which runs through 5,846 kms, also covers major cities like Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Surat.

Joshi said the government has also initiated the process of building expressway projects in selected high density areas.

“We are in dialogue with potential investors and concerned state governments to find innovative ways of financing these expressways,” he said.

The minister said acquisition of land was becoming one of the major issues of concerns in the development of road projects.

He said most of the projects would be developed through public-private-partnership. The government plans to award contracts for building 7,300 kms of national highways projects this year.

“This will harness private investment of over Rs50,000 crore,” he said.