NEW DELHI: The government has said it will try to award road projects worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore in 2015-16 to boost infrastructure creation in the country. Highways minister Nitin Gadkari also announced creation of 25 lakh jobs in the shipping and highways sector. “It is a difficult work but we will try to accomplish it,” he said addressing a press conference on Thursday.Listing his ministry’s achievements in the first year of the Narendra Modi-led government, Gadkari said that 8,000 km of road projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore were awarded by the government in 2014-15. The minister also highlighted signs of revival in public-private partner ship projects, with five projects drawing several bids on BOT-Toll mode. These include Solapur-Bijapur, Shivpuri-Devas, Raipur-Bilaspur, Hospet-Chitradurg and Delhi- Mukarma highways. Larsen & Toubro has bid below 20% of the estimated cost for Reva to Jabalpur road, Gadkari said.“The highway sector was facing a crisis of confidence and all stakeholders were in complete disarray when we took over ... But now investors’ confidence has revived,” he said. Gadkari said the government will be selling 5,000 km road projects worth about Rs 1 lakh crore, after they are completed on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode.“We are trying to attract foreign funds, insurance funds and pension funds and to build up investors' confidence we will hold a conference of top bankers and investors in which Prime Minister and Finance Minister will also be present,” he said.The government is planning to launch 1,231 projects for 37,000 km to meet its target for highways sector this year. Confident of achieving the target of constructing highways up to 30 km per day by 2016-17, Gadkari said they had already achieved an average of 13 km a day compared to 3 km during UPA regime.The highways ministry is planning to build better connectivity to the religious circuits including the Shriram Circuit, Buddha Circuit and Ajmer Sharif, and also the 1,100 km Chardham project worth Rs 11,000 crore to connect Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath.