Four major National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) highway projects worth around Rs 220 billion have failed to attract any bids from private companies, marking a setback for the build–operate–transfer (BOT) model.
Private developers are staying away mainly over concerns about contract terms, especially weak dispute‑resolution safeguards and what they see as unrealistic construction timelines. The absence of clear arbitration provisions and project durations that expose them to high delay and cost‑overrun risks has made the packages unattractive.
This collective snub highlights a broader loss of confidence in India’s current BOT‑toll framework and may force the government to reconsider the design of future contracts or shift more new highway stretches towards the engineering–procurement–construction (EPC) model.