Building 20 km of highways a day — UPA II government’s ambitious target — is not sustainable due to reasons like delays in environment clearance and issues of land acquisition, highways authority NHAI said on Thursday.

“There is no point in rushing up with projects where we do not have environment clearance, we do not have land acqusition... We must deal with these projects in a way the private equity gets interested,” National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairman RP Singh told reporters.

He said raising equity was a major concern for awarding road projects of 10,000 kms a year, including 7,000 km of national highways. It requires Rs. 90,000 crore investment, of which one-third ( Rs. 30,000 crore) should be private equity.