New Delhi, August 23 (Bureau) Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said that the government is formulating a new model to allow small investors to invest in infrastructure projects.The government will soon list InvITs on the stock market so that retail investors can trade units (of InvITs), offering an opportunity to common citizens to invest into the infrastructure projects, he told the third edition of the Roads and Highways Summit organised by FICCI.The Minister said the InvITs will assure a 7 to 8 per cent return.
He noted the need to expand the national highway network as they carry about 70 per cent of cargo and 90 per cent of the passenger traffic in the country.Gadkari highlighted that national highways at 1.47 lakh km were just about 2.3 per cent of the overall road network. “Before the end of 2024, we will take the national highway network to two lakh kilometres.”Pointing out that logistics costs as the critical challenge to country trade, exports and business, he said the current logistic costs in the country range from 14 to 16 per cent as opposed to 12 per cent in European nations and the US and around 8-10 per cent in China.”My target is to take it up to 10 per cent,” he said.”Our first priority is for waterways, second for railway, third road and fourth aviation.”