"Therefore, in terms of both award and execution, the

NHAI is expected to miss the target by a wide margin," the ratings agency has said.

MoRTH planned to increase both awards and execution in FY2016-17 by 2.5 times from that of the FY2015-16 levels.

For NHAI, the targets are steep with a target execution of 8,000 km (21.92 km/day) and target awards at 15,000 kms.

In August 2016, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had authorised the NHAI to monetise public funded National Highway projects which are operational and generating toll revenues for at least two years after the Commercial Operations Date through the Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) model.

Seventy-five operational national highway projects totalling 4,376 kms completed under public funding have been preliminarily identified for potential monetisation, using the TOT model.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)