New Delhi: Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday that the Centre intends to take over high-traffic state highways to create 4 or 6 lane highways and then recover investments through toll collection within 12-13 years, the Financial Express reports.

Gadkari said that the government is intending to build a green express route between Mumbai and Bangalore to cut travel time to five hours while speaking at an event hosted by the Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI).

“The Ministry of Road Transports and Highways is planning to take over the State Highways with high traffic density from the State Governments for a period of 25 years.” Thereafter, those state highways will be converted into 4 or 6 lane highways and then the Centre will collect toll from those highways,” an official statement said quoting Gadkari. The road transport and highways minister said that as many as 27 green express highways are coming up in the country.

“After a period of 12-13 years, the investments will be fully recovered from those state highways along with interest and land acquisition costs,” he added. According to the statement, Gadkari called for cooperation in infrastructure investment and recommended that investments in the nation’s infrastructure sector be risk-free and produce good returns.

“The financial markets need to come up with innovative models to fund India’s Infrastructure growth. We are inviting investments in the PPP model,” he said.

The minister emphasised that the country’s infrastructure development has been accorded top priority by the Center. Gadkari also stated that he intends to create a National Highway Grid, similar to the National Water Grid.