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A straw poll might show there exists a field of technology in which we Indians actually find it hard to be optimistic: self-driving vehicles. Satellite-guided traffic is a tech vision that’s unlikely to survive contact with our urban streets, unless AI can evolve to outsmart, say, a ‘squid’ motorist (in biker parlance) and learn the art of a real-world dodge.But optimism or any lack thereof has no bearing on the need for tech solutions to upgrade how vehicles move. For one thing, the status quo is costly.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged higher adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and reduced fossil fuel use amid the ongoing West Asia war, the ministry of heavy industries approved ₹503.86 crore to set up 4,874 public EV chargers.The approval falls under the Centre’s ₹10,900 crore PM E-Drive electric mobility scheme. It marks the first sanction for charging infrastructure under the scheme, which has earmarked ₹2,000 crore for EV chargers and targets 72,300 units nationwide.The move comes as EV penetration rises — about 60% of three-wheelers, 4.8% of cars and 6% of two-wheelers sold in India are now electric — but charging gaps persist.Mint explains the subsidy mechanism and why public charging is critical to India’s electric mobility transition.The PM E-Drive scheme allocates ₹2,000 crore specifically to support EV charging infrastructure.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.General Atlantic-owned infrastructure investor Actis LLPis looking to cash out, fully or partly, from its listed Indian roads platform Nxt-Infra Trust, two people aware of the matter told Mint.“Actis is prepared to remain a co-investor or exit entirely depending on the valuation and the profile of the incoming investor,” one of the persons said on condition of anonymity.The mandate had been languishing for about six months, the second person said, on the condition of anonymity. “A Big Four adviser was originally onboarded to take the company through the mandate, but Ambit was later hired following a period of inactivity and execution hurdles.”The earlier outreach was focused largely on a small set of large private equity firms, this person added.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: The Centre is set to adopt a more modest highway construction target for fiscal 2027 (FY27) as it focuses on clearing delayed projects while attempting to revive private investment through the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.The government is likely to target construction of 10,000 km in FY27, unchanged from the previous fiscal year, when actual construction fell short at about 9,400 km. The target marks a step-down from the record 13,814 km set for FY24 and about 12,500 km for FY25.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Ritwik Pareek’s film opens with the image of a temple on a hill after dusk, prayer bells on the soundtrack. This gives way seconds later to shots of distant highway traffic and a great reverberating spaghetti western guitar chord. A man stumbles out of a dive bar, slurs a farewell “Jai siya Ram” and rides off into the night.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The government is considering awarding national highway contracts only after obtaining all critical clearances, a move aimed at curbing project delays and cost escalation, according to two officials aware of the development.Under the proposal being considered, road projects will be awarded only after at least 90% of the land required is acquired, a norm already being enforced more strictly in recent years. In addition, the ministry of road transport and highways wants prior approval to remove structures such as houses and buildings that fall along the project stretch, an issue that has emerged as a key source of delays, one official said.According to the second official, even after land acquisition and statutory approvals, pending permissions to remove or modify built-up structures have stalled several projects.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The government’s push for clean mobility, though a climate imperative, is pushing India’s automobile industry through a difficult transition. Going by road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari’s comments this week, the Centre wants faster progress.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Union road transport and highways ministry is recalibrating its highway-building strategy to focus on decongesting urban India, with plans to prioritize ring roads and bypass corridors around nearly 50 cities with populations exceeding one million, two people aware of the development said.The shift marks a departure from the earlier emphasis on long inter-city corridors under programmes such as Bharatmala, towards integrating highways with urban mobility needs.According to the first person quoted above, the new approach of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) will ensure that long-distance highway traffic is diverted outside dense city cores, enabling seamless freight movement while reducing congestion within cities. The broader objective is to lower logistics costs and support investment and growth.As per government estimates, the country’s logistics cost has already fallen from 13–14% of GDP a few years ago to close to 8% now, driven by GST reforms, FASTag, e-way bills, digital tracking systems, and the expansion of highways and freight corridors under PM Gati Shakti.Queries mailed to MoRTH and NHAI remained unanswered till press time.“The new highway construction strategy would keep at least around quarter of annual highway construction target of about 10,000 km for building bypasses and ring roads around cities with higher vehicle density.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Lucknow-headquartered APCO Infratech is in talks with Alpha Alternatives to sell the strategic Z-Morh tunnel that provides all-weather connectivity between Gagangir and Sonamarg in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for $267 million, according to two people aware of the development.The 6.5-km- tunnel, which ensures uninterrupted military logistics and year-round civilian access to Ladakh by bypassing an avalanche-prone stretch, was built at ₹2,400 crore and inaugurated in 2025. Awarded by the National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corp Ltd (NHIDCL), the project has a 15-year concession, with investments to be recovered through biannual annuity payments of ₹295 crore.The deal will see Alpha Alternatives acquire APCO Amarnathji Tunnelway Pvt Ltd, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up by APCO Infratech to execute the Z-Morh tunnel project in Jammu and Kashmir.“APCO is in talks with Alpha Alternatives for the sale of Z-Morh tunnel for an enterprise value of $267 million,” said the first of the two persons cited earlier, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.Queries emailed to APCO Infratech, Alpha Alternatives and NHIDCL remained unanswered till press time.Alpha Alternatives, founded by Naresh Kothari, is a Mumbai-based alternative asset management firm that invests across non-traditional assets beyond plain equities and bonds.The state-run NHIDCL awarded the project to the SPV in 2020 under the design-build-finance-operate-transfer (DBFOT) model, where a private entity handles the entire project lifecycle before transferring it back to the government.

Assam, which has a 126-member assembly, votes on 9 April, with counting scheduled for 4 May along with other poll-bound states. In the 2021 election, the BJP won 60 seats with a 33.2% vote share, while the Congress won 29 seats and cornered a vote share of 29.2%.There is much at stake both for the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress, and for the two state leaders leading these respective camps: CM Sarma and Gaurav Gogoi.With this election, the BJP will seek a third consecutive term in power.

₹29,000-crore liability for unsettled cases.A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan reaffirmed that landowners whose land was acquired for highway projects between 1997 and 2015 are entitled to extra compensation, known as solatium, and interest, even for past acquisitions.The apex court maintained that financial implications of the judgment, estimated at around ₹29,000-crore by the NHAI—cannot be a ground to deny fair compensation to landowners.“The grant of solatium and interest cannot be made contingent upon the magnitude of the financial burden. The Constitutional guarantee of just compensation cannot be diluted on that basis.

DoT) in December reserved 50MHz spectrum in the 5,875–5,925 megahertz (MHz) band for V2X and intelligent transport systems (ITS). Of this, 30MHz (5,875–5,905MHz) will be used for initial deployment, with the remainder earmarked for future ITS applications.DoT has approached Trai for its recommendations as MoRTH does not deal with the subject of spectrum.Vehicle connectivity is built around two components: on-board units (OBUs) installed in vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) deployed along infrastructure such as traffic signals.

NEW DELHI: India builds some of the world’s fastest expanding highway networks but depends on imports for a large share of the bitumen used to bind asphalt.The country needs about 9 million tonnes of bitumen each year for road construction. In FY25, domestic production was 5.3 million tonnes, with the rest imported—largely from West Asia, a region currently facing conflict.Against this backdrop, bio-bitumen, an alternative derived from biomass, could replace up to a third of petroleum-based bitumen, potentially reducing India’s import dependence.

NEW DELHI: The heavy industries ministry has begun assessing proposals from state governments and state-run oil marketing companies to install charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EV) under the ₹10,900 crore PM E-Drive scheme, with the aim of disbursing about ₹80 crore by the end of FY26, according to two people aware of the development.The government has allocated ₹2,000 crore of the scheme’s overall outlay towards supporting the installation of over 72,000 EV chargers. It will cover 70-100% of the upstream costs of setting up charging stations in state-owned premises in cities and on highways, including bringing adequate grid power to the site, and 70% of the cost of actual chargers.The government roughly halved the benchmark costs of setting up public EV charging stations in 2025 from the 2022 estimates to ₹1.6 lakh for a 12-kW charger, ₹3.4 lakh for a 60-kW charger, ₹5 lakh for a 120-kW charger, ₹8 lakh for a 240-kW charger, and ₹12.5 lakh for a 360-kW charger.

India is preparing for one of the biggest overhauls of its highway tolling architecture since the rollout of FASTag. Instead of the previously considered Global Navigation Satellite System-based tolling model, the ministry of road transport and highways and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) now plan to implement the Multi-Lane Free-Flow electronic toll collection system across the country’s 146,560-km national highway network.

₹1 trillion towards highway construction in FY27, potentially marking the largest annual private sector investment in India’s roads sector, according to two people aware of the matter.Projects worth around ₹35,000 crore, reserved exclusively for private participation under the build-operate-transfer (toll) model, are likely to be bid out in the first three months of the next fiscal year, according to the first person cited above.Detailed project reports for projects worth ₹50,000–60,000 crore are being finalised and are expected to be opened for bidding in the third and fourth quarters of FY27.“As all these would be BOT (toll) projects, the private sector is expected to give investment commitments of close to ₹1 trillion for building greenfield highways,” the person said.The push signals a renewed push to crowd in private capital after years of limited activity under build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.

In Indian boardrooms, ‘AI-enabled’ could overtake ‘digital transformation’ in its buzz quotient. If it’s new, app-based and comes with a valuation expressible in unicorns, it must be good, right? Well, India has always had a muscular pro-innovation bias. From UPI to ONDC, from Aadhaar to account aggregators, it has shown the world that technology can leapfrog infrastructure.

Commuters looking to zoom past toll plazas on India's 1,46,560 km highway network will have to wait longer. Security concerns about surveillance cameras imported from countries like China have delayed the rollout of the barrier-free tolling system.The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) seeks to install the multi-lane free-flow (MLFF) system at around 1,150 toll plazas nationwide to allow vehicles to pass through at speeds of 100 km/h or more.

Vertis Infrastructure Trust, an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) backed by global investment firm KKR and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, plans to double its assets under management (AUM) to about ₹52,000 crore over the next two years, driven by steady secondary acquisitions of operational highway projects worth ₹5,000–6,000 crore annually, joint chief executive officer Zafar Khan said in an interview.The roads-focused InvIT, which currently manages assets worth around ₹26,000 crore, expects to add a mix of hybrid annuity model (HAM) and toll projects to maintain a balanced portfolio and enhance investor returns.“We are not satisfied with ₹26,000–27,000 crore. We are looking at doubling our AUM in the next two years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: With the growing number of complaints against the government’s automated testing stations (ATS) that assess vehicle fitness, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) is auditing the 178 ATS to check data bleeding and manipulation to reduce the number of unfit and end-of-life vehicles on Indian roads, according to two people aware of the development. “About 25% of all vehicle testing is now happening at ATS, and the next step is to ensure that the data is protected and not tampered with.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Reworked concession terms, stronger traffic growth and falling yields on operational assets are nudging long-term capital back toward construction-linked road bets. After staying away from construction-risk projects for almost a decade, fund houses and private equity firms are re-evaluating greenfield build-operate-transfer (BOT) highway projects in India.