India looking to build 12,000 km of roads this yr

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India expects to build 12,000 kilometres of roads this year, with a preference to use a toll model for new roads as far as possible, the road transport minister said on Friday.

"We are looking to build 12,000 km of highways this year which will cost close to 1 trillion rupees ($21 billion)," Kamal Nath told reporters at a conference.

"The first preference will be for building roads through toll projects. We are looking to build up specialised tolling companies as in Europe," he said.

India has a road network of about 3.4 million km (2.1 million miles), of which about 70,000 km are national highways. The government has set up an ambitious target of building 20 km of roads per day.

Earlier this week, Nath told Reuters in an interview he expected foreign investors to fund half of the $20 billion a year it has earmarked for road building.