Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on March 28 announced the proposal to set up a road regulatory authority to address issues such as financial stress, construction risk and contract management in the sector.The Minister said the independent regulatory authority will be set up in 2014 to address all issues faced by the road sector.

The prime duties of the proposed regulator are likely to be tariff setting, regulation of service quality, assessment of concessionaire claims, collection and dissemination of sector information, service-level benchmarks and monitoring compliance of concession agreements, among others.

The government also said that the bottlenecks stalling road projects have been addressed and 3,000 kilometre of road projects in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh will be awarded in the first six months of 2013-14.

The Finance Minister allocated Rs 14,873 crore to Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and in which major portion will go to purchase of buses to improve the quality of public transport system.