The B K Chaturvedi Committee, set up to recommend ways to expedite the National Highways Development Project, seems to have been guided by the misconception that infrastructure can be built by simply doling out additional concessions to the investors. The new rules make inadequate capacity highly rewarding for investors, and offer the entire viability gap-funding grant during the construction phase itself. The question, however, is whether these concessions are necessary and justifiable, given the huge costs they impose on the road user and the taxpayer at large.