Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari has hinted at inviting public money to fund National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) projects. Industry sources claim that the NHAI IPO is in the works, and will soon get an approval from ministry of finance. The government is confident of raising Rs.10 trillion from investor subscriptions. The minister expects that the NHAI IPO is progressing on the hope that it will receive the same response the Cochin Shipyard IPO received. The Cochin Shipyard IPO was oversubscribed 76 times and garnered Rs.1,560 crores. In what is termed as interesting, the road transport minister is known to say that he will stress on a ‘build, operate and transfer’ business model for large infra projects. He is also known to have expressed that the NHAI has pockets deep enough to exectue projects under EPC. The government, claim sources, is planning to invest eight-trillion rupees to kickstart 30 rural connectivity projects. Of these, five projects are expected to start in the next three months.