With large investments needed for road projects in India, coupled with uncertain recovery, high cost of borrowing, delays in land acquisition and removal of structures, shifting of utilities, law and order problem in some states and the poor performance of some contractors, road projects had been moving at a tardy pace. The change in the concession agreement and the global meltdown delayed these projects further.Having all that in mind, NHAI had, in February this year, barred highway contractors and developers from bidding for new projects, if they did not achieve financial closure for were working on. Developers were, till then, given six months to achieve financia closure. This move wil prevent highway contractors and developers from biting off more than they can chew and bring in new players to the field.The NHAI has taken the right move, as companies cannot delay projects any longer. This will help them keep a check on construction firms which have too many projects in hand and also achieve the 20 km per day target.Below two cases that will help you understand how this prohibition is affecting highways developers.GMRGMR, which has three projects that are yet to receive financial closure - Hyderabad-Vijaywada, Chennai ORR and Hungund-Hospet stretch. The firm is awaiting financial closure before it can bid for more projects. An email query sent to the company remain unanswered Currently, six of the company's highway projects are complete and commercially operational.HCCHindustan Construction Company has bagged three orders in the past two weeks which are due forma financial closure un august 2010. We will be forced to go for financial closure for one of our projects to take a fresh bid," said HCC CFO Praveen Sood.Hopefully there will be a new group of developers bidding for future projects, this will make all the indian firms more competitive although profit margins will decrease.