NEW DELHI: The government has lined up highway projects worth at least Rs 60,000 crore to be awarded on the newly conceived hybrid annuity model in the next financial year.This will be more than double that the government is awarding under this model in the current financial year.According to a senior government official in the road transport and highways ministry, around 6,000 km of highway projects will be awarded on the hybrid annuity model that has been able to revive private sector interest in the sector.The road transport ministry is looking to award highway projects worth Rs1.5 lakh crore in the next financial year, and has sought budgetary support of Rs 85,000 crore from the finance ministry for the same.“Around 40% of the total projects we award next year will be on HAM (hybrid annuity model). The model has got a thumbs up In the current financial year, the government is awarding around 21 projects (a total length of 1,500 km) with a total cost of Rs 28,000 crore.It has already started the process to bid out the remaining projects. “Given the lack of appetite for PPP projects, it would be extremely challenging to achieve the road building target without adopting mitigating financial instruments.The government wouldn’t have found any takers for Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model,” said Jaijit Bhattacharya, Partner, KPMG. The road ministry is also revising its target to increase the country’s total highway network.Earlier, road transport and highway minister Nitin Gadkari had set a target of increasing the country’s highway network to 1.5 lakh km from the existing 96,000 km, which has been revised to 1.75 lakh km. from the private sector as it is basically a deferred engineering procurement and construction model that’s risk free,” a senior government official said.