Kamal Nath seeks London investors to develop Indian roads

Roads and Highways Minister Kamal Nath is scouting for investors in London who are willing to invest in India's roads development program.CNBC-TV18's Sanjay Suri reports.

Kamal Nath has an ambitious plan to develop India's road network. He wants to lay 7,000 km of roads in a year, working out to 20 kms a day. He is seeking investments from overseas and it has got a few investors talking.

Alex Carver, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said "There is quite extensive interest for people who will see this as a great opportunity, strong rule of law, capacity to see things through energy in highest levels of government." But more than government energy, this is going to take heavy cash commitments from investors. Kamal Nath is looking at 10 billion over two years. Don't see this as a huge challenge, many are showing strong interest in this. But investors who are looking to put money into the investment are understandably cautious.

Mark Elsey, Partner, Ashurst said "The key thing is to get international players in very significant barriers to entry concentrate on one or two large project and sell hard to key players. 20 kms a day is a lot of road to build and it seems that given the investor caution what actually gets on the ground will be a fairly small fraction of that.